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Fertility clinics in Australia and New Zealand are improving the way they present success rates but there is still room for improvement, our latest annual audit has found.

If you are having IVF treatment, your fertility specialist may discuss endometrial scratching with you. A 2015 survey found that 83 per cent of fertility specialists in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were offering it to women at the time.

IVF is often a last resort for women and couples who have tried for a long time to get pregnant. Of those who try IVF, only about half have a baby as a result of treatment. But new research shows that within five years of ending IVF, whether they were successful or not, about one in six women have a baby without IVF.

The Genie is out of the bottle: DNA testing and the end of donor anonymity VARTA's 2019 seminar explored the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing and how more people are finding out they are not genetically related to family members in the way they always thought. The sold out event held on 17 June, examined how DNA testing is also being used together with genealogy and internet searches to trace donors and donor siblings. As this becomes more affordable, more people are accessing it, increasing the chance of connections and these trends have major implications for donor-conceived people, their parents and donors

In the past twenty years egg freezing has been offered as an option to preserve fertility for women who are diagnosed with cancer and are about to undergo chemotherapy that might affect their fertility. This is called ‘onco fertility preservation’ (OFP). Advances in egg freezing techniques in the last ten years have improved the chance of having a baby from frozen eggs. As a result, more and more women around the world now turn to egg freezing for non-medical reasons to guard against age-related fertility decline. This is called elective fertility preservation (EFP).

VARTA's quartery newsletter helping you stay up to date with all that is happening at VARTA

VARTA's quartery newsletter helping you stay up to date with all that is happening at VARTA

If you have been trying for a baby for a while without success you are no doubt starting to feel a bit stressed. When month after month goes by without any sign of pregnancy it’s easy to start to worry about whether it will ever happen and to feel a bit down about it all. Add to that the stress of having IVF treatment, especially when it fails. In the midst of this someone might tell you ‘Just relax and you’ll get pregnant’.

While the festive season can be wonderful, it can also be challenging if you’ve been trying for a baby for a while without success.

Interpreting IVF clinic success rates in context