What is the average number of tries in the United States before a couple can get pregnant via IVF treatment? What is the average cost?

A.T.

This is a difficult question to answer and provide you with meaningful information. Predicted success rates vary dramatically from individual to individual. Factors such as age, length of infertility, and physical state of the uterus and endometrium (uterine lining) help us take an educated guess regarding your chances for success.

The issue of average number of tries is even more problematic. Many people decide at the onset to try only one cycle, or limited resources mean they can only afford a single try, while others will continue to try IVF treatment long after it seems unreasonable to expect any chance for success.

Let's look, for example, at how age may affect the results. If you are less than 35 years old, we can expect ongoing pregnancy rates over 50-60 percent per IVF retrievals. So the average woman whose medical history suggests the odds of success are good, will conceive, on average, in the first cycle. Some of these women will miscarry. A rule of thumb developed before newer methods (blastocyst culture) were put in place was that on average 65 percent of couples who completed three IVF cycles would have a baby or babies as a result. However, for those couples in which the woman is 40 years of age or older, we can expect fewer than 1 in 12 cycles to result in delivery.

Another way to look at this is to consider the money spent per delivery. This is calculated by adding up the cost of medical services for a group of women and dividing it by the number of women who give birth. As the average IVF cycle charges are between $10,000 and $15,000, analysts have reported costs of about $35,000 per delivery in younger women, while medical costs per delivery are over $132,000 for women over 40.