How to Choose Best Fertility/IVF Clinic?

Synopsis

The inability to conceive affects every 1 in 10 couples and can take a toll on their physical and psychological well-being, the incidence is on a rise due to various issues like late marriages and delaying childbearing. Infertile couples are always in a dilemma about how to choose a fertility center. The success of any fertility treatment depends on many factors out of which the choice of the fertility clinic is of utmost importance. The couple needs to take into consideration various parameters which will affect their chances of getting pregnant while selecting their treatment center

A good fertility center should offer both investigations and treatment under the same roof.

The investigations include basic and advanced fertility check-up, tubal status evaluation, laparoscopy and hysteroscopy, ultrasound ( especially transvaginal ultrasound), and semen analysis.
Treatment facilities include ovulation induction with follicular monitoring, Intrauterine insemination, IVF( invitro fertilization), ICSI( intracytoplasmic sperm injection), blastocyst culture laser-assisted hatching, testicular sperm aspiration( TESA) embryo freezing, egg, and sperm freezing.

Few advance techniques in the field of fertility are also desirable like preimplantation genetic testing( PGS) and close working chamber in IVF lab. Especially couples who had previous treatment failures, the application of advanced technologies like PGS wherein an embryo biopsy is taken from the trophectoderm layer of a blastocyst, analyzed for any genetic defects and hence genetically normal embryos can be selected for an embryo transfer. Also, the incorporation of close working chambers in an IVF lab gives an environment that is similar to the fallopian tubes where fertilization and early embryo development takes place. So we get better embryo quality when gametes and embryos are handled in close working chambers.

Another factor that contributes to the success of any IVF cycle would be the presence of an in-house embryologist and the technical expertise offered by him. A running IVF center doing daily cases gives a better success as compared to IVF done in batches where the embryologist is a freelancer. Also equally important is the air quality and other quality indicators of the IVF lab. A good IVF lab with standard operating procedures gives the best success rates in any IVF cycle. Recently there has been a lot of myths and misconceptions about the mixing of gametes which can be avoided completely by the incorporation of the RI witness system. So the presence of the RI witness system prevents such mishaps and brings clarity in the system.

Last but not least the credentials of the doctor also need to look into, their qualifications, experience, and success rate also influence the choice of any fertility center. A good IVF center gives a success rate of anywhere between 70 to 80%

So all the above-enlisted points should be evaluated by any couple while selecting their treatment center.