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(text on screen): Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source
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Ask the Experts
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Why do we use FSH containing fertility drugs with IVF, rather than alone?
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Dr. Douglas Daly, Grand Rapids Fertility & IVF: In an FSH cycle, what we're trying to do is induce ovulation in women
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who do not normally ovulate; who are anovulatory.
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If they use the FSH medication alone, they may ovulate four, five, six, seven eggs, and, in fact,
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part of the monitoring in an FSH cycle is to cancel cycles which are over-induced.
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Now, if you're ovulating four or five eggs, you have the risk of four or five babies being formed in the cycle.
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And, in the United States, the primary cause of triplets, quads, and quints pregnancy is not IVF.
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It's actually the use of FSH cycles alone.
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Therefore, if we can substitute a technique that allows us to decrease the number of embryos that are actually in the body,
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while increasing the likelihood of pregnancy, we not only improve outcome but we decrease cost in the long run.
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Because the cost of a triplet, quad, or quint pregnancy is related to the aftercare.
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IVF offers us that opportunity.
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IVF can be run and gain multiple follicle induction. We can do the egg retrieval. We can generate embryos in the laboratory.
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And then we can sort through the embryos and pick out two embryos for transfer or one embryo for transfer
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and limit our pregnancy to a singleton or twin gestation and freeze the rest of the embryos
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for comparatively inexpensive second and third chances, thereby decreasing the overall risk to the patient
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and decreasing the possibility of a multiple gestation.
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Unfortunately, even while the insurance companies say this approach makes sense, they won't cover it.
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And therefore the patients are left with the decision of: Do I do the FSH cycle, which may be covered, and run the risk,
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or do I switch to the IVF procedure, which carries less long-term risk for me, but I'm going to have to pay for myself.
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I would just encourage the patients to not be penny wise and pound foolish.
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In the long run, a triplet, quad, or quint pregnancy is going to be a pregnancy that is going to be terribly expensive
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not only for the insurance company but for the patient as well.
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(text on screen): Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source
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