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A new study raises hopes for young couples who decide to choose in vitro fertilization. In the study, published in the Jan.15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that patients younger than 35 who had six cycles of in vitro fertilization had cumulative live birth rates between 65% and 86%. The situation is different for women over 40, whose chances are less than 50 percent.
“Fertility is a function of age. It starts to decline at age 27, and the most pronounced decline is above age 40, explained study lead-author Dr. Alan S. Penzias, surgical director of Boston IVF, and an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. “Even as effective as IVF is, it can’t reverse the effects of aging,” he explained. According to statistics, about 10 percent of IVF cycles are done on women age 40 and older.
The study helps answer the most important question for women considering fertility treatments – whether IVF will result in a baby, he said.
The researchers said the findings demonstrate that women under 35 who go through IVF have roughly the same chance of having a baby as someone with the same age in the general population.
The study concludes that IVF may largely overcome infertility in younger women, but it does not reverse the age-dependent decline in fertility.
Currently, about 12 percent of women ages 15 to 44 in the United States seek infertility treatments, according to a 2002 national survey.
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