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Dr. Schmidt describes if the number of embryos a fertility doctor can implant should be limited to prevent multiple births.
Dr. Schmidt:
Having fertility docs be limited to the number of embryos that they can give to a mom has some good points and some bad. It’s done in Europe. In Europe though, infertility is a covered benefit. Here it is generally not a covered benefit. So when people are laying out $20,000 and you are telling them I am going to withhold these embryos and freeze them; freezing number are just fine, but when they thought you have a chance of losing a couple. My daughter was an IVF baby. She was a frozen embryo. She was one that made it out of three.
So it’s very difficult in a world where we live in where people are supposedly having free choice, freedom of choice to control them when they are the one paying the bill. If you are like most REIs, you will counsel patients on how many embryos should be replaced back for certain statistics on if getting a singleton, twins or not getting pregnant.
The embryologist also becomes a very important factor. The embryologist is just as educated as the MD, they are just not MDs, they are PhDs and their input, if they are good embryologist, is generally right on. My embryologist has never been wrong with me. So if she says put in two, I put in two; she says one, one will do it. So, and we’ve put in one and gotten babies.
About Dr. Schmidt, M.D.:
Dr. Lila Schmidt, M.D., is a reproductive endocrinology infertility doctor at Alvarado Hospital. She completed an OB/GYN residency and then received further training in reproductive endocrinology, focusing on PMS, menopause, and infertility.
Visit Dr. Schmidt at Alvarado Hospital