Number of eggs retrieved for IVF also depends on the women’s age and the number of children she would like to have. Because eggs deteriorate with time, younger women tend to have more number and better-quality eggs than older women. Younger the woman, better quality her eggs are and higher her chances are at getting pregnant. According to research,

• Women < 35 years of age have the highest success rates.
• Women < 38 years have acceptable live births even with only 3 – 6 eggs, and do better with more than 6 eggs and do best with more than 10 eggs.
• Women 38 – 40 years and 40 – 42 years old have low live birth rates with low egg number and the success rate of live births increases relatively with high egg numbers.
• All the age groups have very low success rates with less than 3 eggs retrieved.
  
  

With the advent of freezing techniques, the desire to retrieve more oocytes in a single stimulation cycle has increased. Embryos are cultured till blastocyst stage and then one or two of them are transferred and the remaining embryos are frozen for future purposes. So, more the number of oocytes, greater is the number of embryos formed and higher are chances of using them in consequent cycles. Hence, it ultimately increases the cumulative live birth rate of IVF.

CONCLUSION

          So, we conclude that undoubtedly the number of eggs retrieved are important for success of IVF but the focus is shifting to quality of oocytes obtained to quantity of oocytes. Also, the age of the female plays a very important role in oocyte retrieval ultimately increasing live birth rate.

For further assistance or queries, contact our experts at Fertility Foundation/ SISU Hospital at +9194433 00000 or visit www.sisuhospitals.com.