In Vitro Fertilization

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In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a process by which an egg is fertilized by sperm outside the body, a treatment for infertility. The article I chose is about reducing the risk of multiple births which seems to be a major problem with IVF. The problem is due to a large number of embryos being transferred in treatment cycles. During IVF, normally its three or more embryos, but a few suggest no more than 2 embryos should be transferred at a time. If only 2 embryos were transferred it would not reduce the chance of pregnancy but could very well reduce the chance of multiple births. Some say though that only 2 will reduce the chance of IVF working. The database used was established by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority in U.K. The factors that are associated with increased risk of multiple births were studied. These factors include, the women’s age, the cause and duration of their infertility, the number of previous attempts at in vitro fertilization, the number of previous live births, the number of eggs fertilized and the number of embryos transferred. The study shows that having previous live births was associated with an increased chance of birth, but not an increased chance of multiple births. Study also shows that the higher the number of eggs fertilized, the higher the likelihood of having a live birth. When more than 4 eggs were fertilized during the study, there was no increase in the birth rate for women that were getting 3 transferred embryos as when compared with those that were only getting 2 transferred. However, there was a considerable increase in the rate of multiple births when 3 embryos were transferred. Among all the women in the study, the chances of live births were related to the number of eggs that got fertilized, more or less because of a bigger selection of embryos used for transfer. Transferring more embryos for in vitro
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