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San Francisco Fertility Doctors, Clinics and Success Rates

California has more fertility clinics than any other state in the US. There are 10 San Francisco fertility clinics specializing in reproductive medicine according to the latest Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) report. Complimentary fertility treatments such as acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, yoga, and massage abound throughout the Bay Area, sometimes in conjunction with the traditional medical care provided by fertility clinics. More than any other city perhaps, San Francisco’s fertility clinics have a focus on treating infertility holistically. As you choose a fertility clinic in San Francisco, your fertility’s doctor approach to complimentary and/or holistic fertility care will be important to consider. Many San Francisco fertility clinics have multiple offices in different parts of the city to ensure that you are able to easily get to appointments, something especially important in an area as spread out as the Bay Area. This allows you to choose a fertility clinic for its overall treatments and approaches but also be able to consider accessibility. The mean age of women undergoing IVF in San Francisco-area fertility clinics is somewhat higher than in other areas of the country. This is probably partly because California does not have mandatory insurance coverage for IVF (though it does for some other fertility treatments) and so women may wait longer before trying IVF. The delay in seeking fertility treatment is also at least somewhat responsible for differences in diagnoses as compared to other parts of the country. As you look at information from San Francisco’s fertility clinics and compare it to other areas, remember this information. California’s fertility clinics, including those in the Bay Area, are so abundant and successful that a growing number of clients from overseas are pulled to the Bay Area. Some fertility clinics actually target clients from overseas and include packages of services specifically for them. Fertility treatment information and statistics from individual San Francisco fertility clinics are available in the most recent Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report, which is compiled by the CDC.

San Francisco Fertility Articles

At times, you may feel like you and your partner are the only ones who are affected by infertility. However, California is home to the largest number of people struggling with infertility of any state in the United States — more than 775,000 people. There are four fertility clinics located in the San Francisco area, and 59 other fertility clinics located throughout the state of California. These clinics are either independently run, or operating in conjunction with local universities. California fertility clinics in vary greatly in the number of IVF cycles administered and the types of procedures done. San Francisco Infertility Clinic Options The Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report, which is published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is an important tool in the search for a fertility clinic. This report includes the success rates for every fertility clinic that operates in the United States. There were 3,143 IVF cycles performed in California in 2007 that used donor eggs. Ten fertility clinics in the San Francisco area accounted for 989 of these donor egg cycles, 566 of which used fresh donor eggs and 423 of which used frozen donor eggs. For further information on donor egg IVF cycles in San Francisco, click here. The following data, from the 2007 Assisted Reproductive Technology Report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), detail the number of donor egg IVF cycles and the number of live births at San Francisco fertility clinics. Clinic Name City Fresh Donor Eggs A surrogate is a woman who carries a child for another woman or a couple. Surrogacy is fertility treatment for women who cannot conceive or cannot carry a pregnancy to term. Infertility treatments can become costly, especially when multiple courses of fertility drugs and treatment cycles are necessary. Many couples turn to their insurance companies for help in covering some of the costs. Only 15 states currently have infertility insurance mandates in place; fortunately, California is one. As you begin your infertility treatment process, you may feel that it is an emotionally trying time, for both you and your partner. You may find your moods changing rapidly. You may feel sad or hopeless one day, only to find yourself angry or guilty the next. Additionally, you and your partner may go through different feelings at different times.With all of the advances made in the field of reproductive technology, a range of new legal issues have emerged. A field of law has developed to take on these concerns. Called Family Building Law or Adoption and Reproductive Technology Law, this new branch of law is constantly evolving. Recently, reality star Giuliana Rancic, anchor and managing editor of E! News, opened up about her fertility treatments, revealing that she receives more than 60 IVF injections in one month to prepare her body for the IVF procedure. But is this number of IVF injections typical for an average patient? According to Dr. John G. Wilcox, a board certified reproductive endocrinologist (fertility doctor) at HRC Fertility in Pasadena, Calif., representing that more than 60 IVF shots a month as the normal patient experience can be misleading. “That’s an exceptional number of injections,” he says. “It would be highly atypical, profoundly atypical.” by Nicole and Josh, Intended Parents; and submitted by Christine Rush, Case Manager, Northern California
, The Surrogacy SOURCE, December 4, 2010 Any woman who has dreamed of having a child dreams of what it will be like to be pregnant … the joy of seeing your belly grow, the excitement of feeling your baby kick and the amazement of giving birth to a child.   For some though, carrying a child is not an option.  So what is next?  Where do you go from here?  Is surrogacy the journey that is meant for you? California has more fertility clinics than any other state in the US. A number of these are in the San Francisco area, which has at least 10 fertility clinics specializing in reproductive medicine according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) report. A panel of experts brought together by the Institute of Medicine is weighing the issue of whether fertility treatment costs should be covered by the new state-based insurance exchanges that will be available in 2014 for individuals and small businesses. The question at hand? Should fertility treatments be considered essential health benefits, or are they more “life-enhancing,” since they don’t treat life-threatening illnesses?Before you begin your fertility treatments, hundreds of questions are probably running through your mind. What fertility tests will you go through? What kinds of fertility treatments will work best for you? And lurking at the back of your mind, how much will these fertility treatments cost? Fertility treatment cost, is an important consideration when beginning your fertility treatment process, especially since only 15 states mandate infertility insurance. While fertility treatment and IVF costs vary depending on fertility clinic, type of treatment, and infertility diagnosis, it can still be helpful to have a ballpark figure on which to base an estimated cost. A new study has set out to provide infertility patients with just that. Lindsay Kamakahi, an egg donor, has filed a class action lawsuit against the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), and Pacific Fertility Center, alleging that the three groups conspired to fix prices for human egg donors and “reap anti-competitive profits for themselves.” Lindsay Kamakahi v. American Society For Reproductive Medicine, Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and Pacific Fertility Center, Civil Action Case No. 11-Cv-1781 was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. “According to the Class Action Complaint, the plaintiff egg donor is alleging that certain parties (professional organizations, medical service providers and other businesses that pay for or purchase donor services) did effectively suppress donor compensation,” says Amy Demma, an attorney who specializes in reproductive law. “The premise of the claim appears to be related to ethical guidelines issued by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine as they reference appropriate egg donor compensation.”Philip E. Chenette, MD, Pacific Fertility Center, San Francisco, CA July 2011 FertilityAuthority.com is pleased to honor Philip Chenette, MD, as Fertility Doctor of the Month. We recognize San Francisco fertility doctor Philip Chenette for his progressive and patient-focused practice at Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco, CA, and his philosophy of individualized care for the fertility patients he treats.

San Francisco Fertility News

Video clips of days-old embryos reveal developing growth that may predict whether they are likely to lead to pregnancy, making them good choices to implant in women undergoing fertility treatment, a study found. A Stanford University team used a tiny microscope with video to film 242 embryos as they grew. The scientists identified three criteria that they said may forecast with 93 percent accuracy whether an embryo would reach a stage more likely to lead to pregnancy. Cancer used to be an old people's disease. No longer: we all have friends and colleagues — young people, in their 20s, 30s, 40s — who've been on the receiving end of a scary diagnosis. The good news is that a verdict of cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was. Survival rates are on the rise, accompanied by a wave of survivors of child-bearing age who want to have children. But can they? The doctor who helped Nadya Suleman conceive her octuplets and six other children through in vitro fertilization faces allegations of negligence at a licensing hearing. Dr. Michael Kamrava could have his license to practice medicine revoked or suspended as a result of Monday's Medical Board of California hearing. The Beverly Hills physician is accused of several instances of negligence, including implanting too many embryos in Suleman, whose moniker "Octomom" is a reference to the octuplets he helped her conceive. For the first time, a study in humans suggests that a controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic may be related to conditions that reduce men's fertility. Men with higher levels of BPA, or bisphenol A, were two to four times more likely than others to have problems with sperm quality and quantity, the study shows. A new study suggests a chemical widely found in a variety of household products may reduce the success of in vitro fertilization and damage human eggs. Researchers at UC San Francisco analyzed the blood of 26 infertile women and their eggs. The eggs had been collected for in vitro fertilization. The team found that those women with the most bisphenol-A (or BPA) in their blood had the least viable eggs, and vice versa. Indeed, as the blood levels of BPA in the women doubled, the percentage of eggs that fertilized normally declined by 50 percent. Couples who turn to fertility clinics for help getting pregnant might expect to pay more than $24,000 out-of-pocket for in vitro fertilization (IVF), California researchers find. Yet success rates hover around only 50 percent, according to data from eight clinics in northern California. "I can't say I was surprised, but I was taken aback by the numbers," study researcher Patricia Katz, of the University of California, San Francisco, told Reuters Health. "They're high." Toxins love to get you while you're young. Lead, mercury, secondhand smoke and sundry other environmental nasties do a lot more damage when tissue is immature, vulnerable and growing than when it's mature and comparatively fixed. Now, according to a small new study led by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the endocrine disruptor BPA may have the longest reach of all — damaging a woman's ova before a baby can even be conceived, much less born. Two studies up the ante on Bisphenol A concerns, which already run the gamut from obesity to cancer. They are based primarily on worries that children exposed in the womb or shortly after birth will be affected by the chemical, which mimics estrogen. In October, Kaiser Permanente published a study showing how BPA may cause low sperm counts and decreased sperm motility in men.When it's most successful, in vitro fertilization, or IVF, yields far more embryos than a couple could ever use (unless that couple is the offspring-obsessed Duggar family). There are frequently frozen embryos left over, and the options for what to do with them are limited: destroy them, donate them to research — or, rarely, to other couples — or continue storing them in liquid nitrogen for a fee. There is very little consistency in terms of how fertility clinics ask patients for their preference.A recent UC San Francisco study observed 428 couples for 18 months after they visited a Bay Area reproductive clinic and found that nearly a quarter had used acupuncture and nearly 1 in 5 had used herbal therapy to treat infertility. Acupuncture has become increasingly accepted by the medical establishment as a treatment to reduce pain and stress, and there have been multiple studies on its effects on infertility in the past decade. But even as many patients use acupuncture to successfully help them have children, scientists still are unsure how it works, or if it's effective. Younger women with early-stage breast cancer who took a drug to suppress their ovaries were more likely to avert early menopause caused by chemotherapy, researchers found. The treatment, triptorelin, helped patients avoid the permanent loss of their fertility that can be prompted by chemotherapy’s toxic doses, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.Women who undergo chemotherapy may suffer more damage to their reproductive health than previously believed. That’s the suggestion of a new study conducted by researchers from the Univeristy of California, San Franciso and published online in the journal Cancer. The researchers found chemotherapy essentially narrows a woman’s reproductive window by causing a range of damage to the ovaries, even if her menses resume after treatment. Read more.The risk of infertility from cancer treatment may be much higher than doctors and patients realize, and almost all women diagnosed in their 20s and 30s who want children someday should be given the option of freezing their eggs or embryos, Bay Area fertility experts say. Read more.