IVF for Older Women

We are willing to take on the most difficult cases with lower prognosis, so long as we feel there is a chance for pregnancy. Women over 38 years of age often have very few eggs, respond poorly to conventional ovarian stimulation, and because of lower pregnancy rates, are often just cancelled by IVF clinics for fear that such cases will lower their reportable statistics. Also, such patients usually require huge doses of expensive drugs that can add another $6,000 or $7,000 to the already high cost of conventional IVF, bringing total costs to as much as $18,000 or more per cycle.

Of course, one option for such women is donor eggs, but many women would prefer getting pregnant with their own eggs. The best solution for such patients is the Japanese mini-IVF protocol using a very highly specialized pure air environment of the highest industrial "clean room" grade, and an absolutely safe and reliable system for embryo freezing.

Mini-IVF, first developed by the Kato Ladies Clinic in Japan and then perfected and popularized at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, is just the right approach for older women or women with low ovarian reserve who still want to use their own rather than donor eggs. It takes advantage of your own natural FSH elevation with an ingeniously simple protocol that strives for smaller numbers of better quality eggs. Instead of massive doses of expensive hormones to try to blast out a few poor quality eggs, it more naturally teases out of the older ovaries their best quality eggs with a carefully devised protocol of minimal stimulation. There are no symptoms of huge hormonal swings or hyperstimulation. It is easier on the patient and much cheaper than conventional IVF.

The success of this approach depends not only on a novel endocrine stimulation protocol, but also upon a flawless method of embryo freezing such as our vitrification system, and the highest level laboratory air purification system to give the eggs from older women the best possible environment in which to develop.