Between IVF and IVM

My husband and I have been trying to conceive for many years. After using the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) technique unsuccessfully, someone suggested that we try the In Vitro Maturation (IVM) approach. Kindly let me know the difference between the two.

Abiodun (by SMS)

For people struggling to conceive, typical fertility treatment options like in vitro fertilization, or IVF, can be taxing physically, emotionally and financially. However, advances in technology are helping to improve another less painful and costly option for treating infertility, known as in vitro maturation, or IVM.

In vitro maturation is surfacing as an alternative to in vitro fertilization that could “reduce the cost and time that fertility patients spend at the doctor’s office and mitigate the side effects. While IVF, the typical fertility treatment, “relies on hormone injections to ripen a crop of eggs inside the body,” IVM involves “collecting immature eggs from the ovaries and maturing them in the lab.”

The first baby born from IVM was in Korea in 1991. Since then, the «method has generally yielded lower birth rates than IVF. It has historically generated fewer mature eggs and embryos than IVF, but those stats are improving with better technology. Although it maintains a lower success rate than IVF, IVM could still be “the better option for several groups of patients’.

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