Atlanta, GA

Zsolt Peter Nagy, Ph.D., Reproductive Biology Associates, Atlanta, GA

April 2012

By Leigh Ann Woodruff, February 20, 2012

Try, try again. Does that apply when you're having trouble getting pregnant? Maybe.

You've heard it quite a bit. If you're under 35 and haven't been successful getting pregnant after trying for one year, go see a fertility doctor. The same goes for if you're over 35 and haven't been successful after trying for six months.

But now an Australian study has raised questions around that conventional wisdom. The study, published in Fertility and Sterility, found that one in four women with a history of infertility can still end up having a baby without fertility treatment.

Women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) who receive three or more embryos have no better odds than those how received two, according to a new study published in the journal Lancet. In addition, there is a greater chance of multiple births, which create more risk for the mother and for the child(ren).

The researchers also say the decision to transfer one or two embryos should be based on prognostic indicators, such as age, and they recommend that fertility doctors seeing a new couple with infertility should move older women to IVF sooner rather than later.

"The authors of the Lancet paper are saying that for patients that are 40 years and older, the ideal target of a single embryo transfer is going to reduce their chances of having a positive outcome," says E. Scott Sills, a fertility doctor with Pacific Reproductive Medicine in Irvine, CA. "The authors are not saying that a number higher than two should be transferred, and I would certainly endorse that viewpoint."