When considering an IVF clinic, it's important to understand the numbers.

Of course, numbers in IVF can be complicated. Pregnancies happen due to a number of factors, especially as it takes at least two to make a baby, making the whole thing more difficult to understand. Fortunately, the Australian government provides an industry-wide understanding of success rates at the Your IVF Success website.

Launched in 2021, Your IVF Success is an initiative welcomed by the fertility industry in Australia, because it provides transparency to a field that can often be overly complex and hard to connect with. Your IVF Success provides a glimpse as to what the numbers look like across every fertility clinic in Australia to help you make the best decision.

At Fertility First, the most important number is the chance of having a baby from IVF treatment.

This number is known as “Live Births Per Complete Egg Retrieval Cycle”, seen in the graph, and it’s the chance of a baby from one egg collection.

We’ve also found women having their first ever egg retrieval are more likely to see a birth in the end, despite this going against the national average.

In Australia, the average below 35 years is 50.2%, while over 35 to 42 years is 30.3%. In comparison, Fertility First sees higher, with 60% and 34.2% respectively.

However it’s important to understand while the numbers matter, there’s more to a fertility clinic than merely success rates. Age and experience matter, as does working out whether you even need IVF at all.

Other factors are important, such as the size of the clinic and how it works with patients, are all very much a part of what can decide the difference between a good IVF clinic and a great one, and one that delivers the goal you want.

IVF isn't just about the science of putting egg and sperm together. It's more than that.

Did you know...

Fertility First treats more over 40 than the national average.

Age of female patients having IVF

Source: Your IVF Success

It's true.

In fact, Fertility First helps almost six times the number of women aged 40 and over than the national Australian average.

We find that younger women are less likely to need IVF, and fall pregnant with simpler and easier treatments.

Age tells only some of the story

The age of patients is just one of the factors fertility specialists have to take into account when working on a plan to fall pregnant with IVF. There are other factors, such as any underlying conditions between you and your partner, how long you’ve been trying for, what methods you’ve been trying with, and so on.

A fertility specialist can help you make heads and tails of the numbers, and chart out a path to help you fall pregnant. Reading the numbers won’t tell you that alone.

Did you know 58 percent of women treated at Fertility First have already been treated elsewhere, compared to 37 percent nationally?

No two clinics are the same

While numbers can be misleading, it’s important to note that no two clinics have the same approach, and some may not even be welcoming of your age or situation and their impact on your potential chance of pregnancy.

But let's be clear: everyone deserves a chance to have a family.

Let's talk numbers so you can understand

The government’s approach with Your IVF Success is to talk numbers to create an average, but if no two clinics are the same, and if clinics vary by the number and types of patients they regularly see, the numbers won’t merely “add up”.

So let's talk numbers.

Did you know that 29% of women treated at Fertility First have already had a previous baby with IVF, compared to only 19% on average nationally? In fact, a woman has a 52% higher chance of a second or third pregnancy from the one egg collection.

That’s one set of numbers that might confuse, but there are others, especially if you judge by numbers alone.

Live birth rates per single embryo transferred

Source: Your IVF Success

This measure looks at the live birth rate per single embryo transferred for Fertility First against the national average. However two embryos may be transferred back to patients at Fertility First depending on what’s recommended by the specialist fertility doctor.

This is a consequence of individualising treatment cycles to a woman’s age and the number of unsuccessful treatment cycles she has already had in the past.

This change can skew the numbers considerably, as the live birth rate per embryo transfer as seen in the graph is halved, where two embryos are transferred for one potential pregnancy. It’s an example of how reading the numbers might not relate to real life or your chances for IVF success overall when it comes to having a baby from a single egg collection.

Talk to your fertility specialist

The numbers can tell you one story, but they won’t predict your chances of IVF success the way you might think. For that, you should talk to a fertility specialist, and go over your history, your health, your life, and what you’re doing to fall pregnant. And if you’re taking this journey with someone in your life, you need to go over their life, health, and history with a specialist, too.

Numbers won’t tell you the whole story but they can inform some of it, so be sure to speak to your fertility specialist to find out what you should do next.