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IVF success rates
When choosing your fertility treatment clinic, IVF success rates are important part of the decision-making process. However, we understand comparing these rates can be an overwhelming task. Our fertility experts explain which numbers are important so you can continue your journey with confidence.
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What are IVF success rates?
A clinic's IVF success rates tell you the percentage of treatments performed by the clinic that had a successful result. This could be:
The patient becoming pregnant
The patient having a baby
A higher percentage means more treatments have been successful. However, it's important to bear in mind that this number doesn't reflect how likely you are to become pregnant.
Your individual chances of becoming pregnant depend on your age, your fertility health and egg/embryo quality.
A clinic's success rates should be used to determine if it is up to the national standard, so you can make informed decisions about where to have your treatment.
Success rates at TFP Fertility
Head to your local TFP Fertility clinic page to see the success rates for our individual clinics. These success rates give you an idea of the percentage of IVF cycles that have resulted in a positive outcome and are broken down by female age and treatment type.
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Understanding IVF success rates
In the UK, success rates for IVF clinics are reported as the number of pregnancies or live births per treatment cycle or embryo transfer.
When reviewing a clinic's success rates, the main thing is that they are in line with national averages. However, when carrying out a comparison, it's important you're looking at the same type of success rate, for example, a clinic's live birth rate vs the national average live birth rate.
There’s no need to focus on small differences in success rates, as this can be due to the age and type of patients the clinic treats.
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Pregnancies vs live births
The pregnancy rate includes IVF cycles that resulted in pregnancies, including those that miscarried.
Miscarriages are common in all pregnancies, including for IVF, affecting on average 1 in 8 pregnancies.
The live birth rate, on the other hand, only includes IVF cycles where the pregnancy ended in a live birth.
If a clinic has a large difference in pregnancies vs live births, this is may mean that they see more older patients or patients with a higher chance of miscarriage.
What does 'live births per embryo transferred' mean?
'Live births per embryo transferred' refers to the number of embryo transfers that resulted in a live birth.
This data only includes patients who were able to have an embryo transfer. Some patients may not make it to this stage because:
They became pregnant naturally
Their embryos weren't suitable for treatment
They changed their minds about undergoing treatment
Success rates given per embryo transferred may not reflect older people or those less likely to have high-quality embryos.
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Example: Per cycle vs per embryo transferred
To help explain how these success rates are worked out, we've put together an example of 'per cycle vs per embryo transferred'.
100 patients began IVF treatment. 80 of those progressed to the embryo transfer stage.
All 80 patients had a single embryo transfer. 20 of those went on to have a baby.
This means that the live birth success rate per IVF cycle is 20 out 100, equal to 100.
However, the live birth success rate per embryo cycle is 20 patients out of 80, equal to 25%.
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Single vs multiple embryo transfer
In the UK, medical regulations determine whether patients can have a single or multiple embryo transfer. These factors include:
Patient age
Quality of embryos
Number of failed implantations
For clinics with patients needing multiple embryo transfers, their success rate per embryo transferred will be lower.
If a clinic has a high live birth rate per cycle but a lower birth rate per embryo transferred, it's likely that more patients required a multiple embryo transfer.
Example: Single vs multiple transfer success rate
In our earlier example, 80 of the 100 patients who started an IVF cycle proceeded to have a single embryo transfer. From those, 20 babies were born which meant the clinic had a live birth rate per embryo transfer of 25%.
But say 20 of those patients had a double embryo transfer, and five of those were successful, this means the remaining 60 had a single embryo transfer and 15 were successful.
This would make the live birth rate per embryo transfer 20%, because 20 babies were born from 100 embryos in total.
How to compare clinic success rates
It can be difficult to compare clinic success rates because the patient population of each clinic can vary widely in terms of age, underlying fertility issues and overall health.
For example, some clinics specialise in treating certain fertility issues or older women, so they may have lower success rates than others.
However, the experience and methods of a clinic can affect their success rates too, so it’s helpful to check that their results are in line with the national average.
How to find detailed success rates for any clinic
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has a useful tool that lets you dive into detailed statistics for a fertility clinic.
You can look at specific treatments and set them to your age range, so that the results are more relevant to you.
Here’s an example for TFP Nurture Fertility.
You can find this tool for any clinic by:
Searching for the clinic you’re interested in on the HFEA website
Once you're on the clinic page, scroll down to the ‘clinic statistics’ section
Look for ‘detailed statistics’ button on the right-hand side
Select the data you want to see
We also provide a breakdown of our most recent IVF success rates for each TFP Fertility clinic on our website.
The most important thing to know about success rates
If you take one thing away from this article, here’s what our fertility experts' recommend you focus on:
That a clinic’s success rate is similar to the national average
Remember that success rates are heavily affected by the age and fertility health of the patients at the clinic
When comparing clinics, make sure you look at the same type of success rates
FAQs
What is the success rate of IVF by age?
According to data from the NHS, the average success of IVF per age group is as follows.
Live births per embryo transferred are:
1 in 3 for women under 35
1 in 4 for women aged 35-47
1 in 5 for women aged 38-39
1 in 10 for women aged 40-42
1 in 20 for women aged 43+
What are donor egg IVF success rates?
Donor eggs usually come from young, healthy people to improve the chances of a successful pregnancy.
This means that IVF success rates using donor eggs are higher, especially in older women.
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