What do fertility treatment success rates mean, exactly?
When you’re treated for infertility, you’ll be given statistics on everything, from your chances of having twins to the likelihood of an ectopic pregnancy. If you are being treated at a clinic, the statistics you’ll be particularly interested in are the clinical pregnancy rate and the live birth rate, also known as the “take-home baby rate”. The former tells you your likelihood of getting pregnant, and the latter gives you the odds for giving birth to a baby. The live birth rate is always lower than the pregnancy rate because some pregnancies end in a miscarriage or loss. Your clinic will give you figures relating to the various types of treatment on offer, and you may like to compare these to the national average success rates. The most recent information on IVF, ICSI and donor insemination statistics is available from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which monitors the clinics that provide these treatments. To give you an idea of the success rates for IVF, the
