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(Text on screen): Fertility Authority: Your Most Trusted Source
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Ask the Experts
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What is the risk of multiples (twins, triplets) with fertility drugs and IVF?
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Dr. Vishvanath Karande, InVia Fertility Specialists: When Clomid doesn't work,
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the next step, quite often, is to put patients on fertility injections, which are stronger than Clomid.
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And especially in younger patients, this is the cause of high-order multiple pregnancies.
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These injections are strong and instead of the patient releasing one or two eggs,
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sometimes despite taking all kinds of precautions, multiple eggs are released and fertilized.
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And it's with this option that you have an uncontrolled risk of high-order multiple pregnancy.
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In fact, currently in patients under age 35, and definitely under age 30, especially those whose ovaries
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are showing plenty of follicles, we will sometimes skip this step and go directly to in vitro fertilization.
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Now, in vitro fertilization is more complicated than the first two options, because you are on fertility injections;
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there is a lot of monitoring with ultrasounds and blood tests, followed by egg retrieval.
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In the lab, the eggs are then mixed with the sperm and an embryo transfer is done two, three, or five days later.
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Now, the disadvantage of in vitro fertilization is it's more involved and more expensive,
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but the up side is that the pregnancy rates are very high, especially when you're considering multiple pregnancy,
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you have control over how many embryos are being transferred (that is, put back into to the woman),
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so, especially if you limit the number to one or two, then it's very seldom that you're gonna have high-order multiple pregnancies.
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(Text on screen): Fertility Authority: Your Most Trusted Source
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