Podcasts about icsi

In this episode, Prof Chapman breaks down the fascinating science of sperm health and its critical role in fertility. He explains how scientists (and now automation) analyze sperm count, motility, and morphology—highlighting the difference between Olympic-level swimmers and non-progressive ones. Prof Chapman also discusses the strict criteria for sperm shape, the importance of trial washes, and how advanced techniques like intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are used when natural conception faces challenges. A must-listen for anyone curious about the intricate journey of sperm towards fertilization. Explore the 'Prof. Michael Chapman - The IVF Journey' Facebook Page, your reliable destination for cutting-edge insights and guidance within the realm of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Don't miss out on the IVF Journey podcast; stay informed with the latest episode updates. Tune in for expert discussions and valuable information on navigating the intricate path of IVF.

Hallo du Liebe, vielleicht kennst du dieses Gefühl: Du funktionierst. Du bist für alle da. Du gibst dein Bestes – im Job, in der Beziehung, auf deinem Kinderwunschweg. Und trotzdem spürst du: Irgendetwas fehlt. Irgendetwas fühlt sich nicht mehr stimmig an. In dieser Folge spreche ich über einen Punkt, den ich in fast jedem Coaching erlebe – und den ich selbst sehr gut kenne:

Neben den klassischen Behandlungen mit Insemination, IVF und ICSI gibt es noch viele Zusatzbehandlungen - sogenannte Add-Ons, die selbst bezahlt werden müssen. Die Beschreibungen klingen oft vielversprechend, doch die Wirkung ist oft nicht eindeutig nachgewiesen. Dr. Elena Leineweber erklärt die wissenschaftliche Datenlage zu verschiedenen Verfahren wie ERA-Test, Killerzellen, Blastozystenkultur und viele mehr.

Kennst du das Gefühl, zerrissen zu sein? Dein Herz sehnt sich nach einem Kind, dein Kopf grübelt, zweifelt und plant – und dein Körper scheint manchmal gegen dich zu arbeiten. In dieser Folge lade ich dich ein, diesen inneren Spagat nicht länger als Kampf zu sehen, sondern als Einladung zur Verbindung. Wir schauen gemeinsam auf die drei zentralen Ebenen deiner Kinderwunschzeit – emotional, mental und körperlich – und ich zeige dir, wie du sie liebevoll integrieren kannst. Diese Folge schenkt dir Verständnis, Reflexion und einen heilsamen Perspektivwechsel – plus eine Mini-Meditation zum Abschluss, die dich tief mit dir selbst verbindet. In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ warum dein Herz oft die Sprache der Intuition spricht – und wie du sie von Angst unterscheiden kannst ✨ wie dein Verstand dich mit Kontrolle und Zweifeln eigentlich schützen will ✨ was du tun kannst, um trotz Unsicherheit ein Gefühl von innerer Sicherheit zu entwickeln ✨ welche mentalen Blockaden & Glaubenssätze häufig im Kinderwunsch wirken – und wie du sie erkennst ✨ was dein Körper dir sagen will, wenn du unter Symptomen wie Endometriose, PCOS, Zysten oder PMS leidest ✨ wie du Herz, Kopf und Körper in einen inneren Dialog bringst, statt sie gegeneinander kämpfen zu lassen ✨ eine sanfte Mini-Meditation, die dich mit all deinen inneren Anteilen verbindet

I'm honored to have Dr. Jie Deng  as a guest on The Egg Whisperer Show podcast today. She is not only an Obgyn and Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist (did extra training studying high risk pregnancies), she is also a fertility doctor at Stanford University finishing up her Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellowship. We are talking about the risks of birth defects, autism and cancer with IVF treatment. She's also answering questions about whether ICSI increases the risk of birth defects as well as: should all IVF pregnancies have a fetal echocardiogram? Dr. Deng is so well versed in the topic IVF risks and high risk pregnancies, and I am excited to talk to her! Read the full show notes on Dr. Aimee's website Do you have questions about IVF?Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, April 22, 2024 at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom.   Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org. Other ways to connect with Dr. Aimee and The Egg Whisperer Show: Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips!Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates

In this episode Cath was joined by Julianne Boutaleb. We discussed fertility journeys, fantasies of ourselves and our babies, how a fertility journey can impact what we believe we are allowed to feel/think and experience in our mothering journeys and so much more. Julianne used poetry to deepen our understanding of the complexities inherent in motherhood and we discussed the importance of right brain to right brain interactions and more!Julianne is the Clinical Director and Founder of the Parenthood In Mind practice. She is a passionate and highly experienced perinatal psychologist who has worked for over 24 years in the NHS and private practice with parents and parents-to-be and their babies (and bumps) who have needed support with a wide variety of issues including anxiety and depression during and after pregnancy, miscarriage and reproductive loss, attachment issues, re-emergence of childhood issues and couples issues.Julianne is a member of the Birth Trauma Association and specialises in working therapeutically with birth trauma, PTSD and tokophobia (fear of giving birth) as they impact the mother, couple relationship and parent-infant attachment. In addition, she is also affiliated with BICA (British Infertility Counselling Association) and offers tailored psychological interventions for individuals and couples (including same sex couples) who are pregnant or are parenting following ART (IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy) or adoption. She also specialises in offering psychological support to parents (either individually or together) who are co-parenting in the midst of separation and divorce. She has over 15 years' experience teaching and training psychologists and health professionals on issues of parental mental health, attachment, early years and positive mental health for babies and young children.Julianne works from a variety of perspectives including psychodynamic and attachment models, CBT, integrative, ACT and compassion-focussed work, couples work and can also offer parent-infant sessions using the Watch, Wait & Wonder model which focusses on how you can improve your attachment relationship with your baby.You can connect with Julianne on Instagram here. Or her website listed here.If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. Follow Cath on social media here:Instagram: @cathcounihanSubstack: Nurture.Heal.GrowFacebook: Cath Counihan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Een openhartig gesprek met Lennert Bille (36). Hij deelt openhartig hoe het is om als man een fertiliteitstraject te doorlopen, met ICSI omwille van mannelijke vruchtbaarheidsproblemen. Een eerlijke blik achter de schermen van wat vaak verzwegen blijft.

Du Liebe Heute lade ich dich auf eine Reise ein: Eine Reise zu den 12 weiblichen Archetypen – kraftvollen inneren Bildern, die dich im Kinderwunsch daran erinnern können, wer du wirklich bist. Gerade dann, wenn sich alles nur noch um Diagnosen, Zyklustage und Hoffnungen dreht, schenken dir die Archetypen eine tiefe Rückverbindung zu deinem Frausein, deiner Intuition und deiner inneren Vielfalt. In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ Woher die 12 weiblichen Archetypen stammen und was sie verkörpern ✨ Warum sie gerade im Kinderwunsch eine heilsame Unterstützung sind ✨ Welche Archetypen besonders bei Kinderwunsch-Themen berühren ✨ Wie du erkennst, ob du zu viel oder zu wenig einer Qualität lebst ✨ Praktische Ideen, wie du jeden Archetypen in deinem Alltag stärkst Ich teile mit dir tiefe Impulse, konkrete Übungen und Affirmationen – damit du dich wieder vollständig fühlst, unabhängig vom Ausgang deiner Kinderwunschreise.

On this week's episode of Sense by Meg Faure, join us for a deeply insightful conversation with the inspiring Caitlyn De Beer – life coach, author, speaker, NPO founder, and mum of two, now expecting her third baby after a significant gap. Caitlyn shares her unique and honest journey through secondary infertility and IVF, intertwined with her strong faith and evolving perspective on motherhood.Caitlyn's Journey to Baby #3 Having conceived her first two children (now 8 and 9) spontaneously (though the first took time), Caitlyn faced unexpected challenges when trying for her third. A history of pelvic nerve issues had previously made another pregnancy seem unwise, but after a successful nerve procedure restored her health, she and her husband decided to try again. When pregnancy didn't happen after months of trying, they sought help, leading them down the path of fertility treatment.The IVF Experience: Caitlyn candidly discusses their experience with ICSI (a specialised form of IVF), initially indicated due to her husband's factors. She describes the supportive environment of the fertility clinic but also the unexpected shock when her own egg retrieval yielded only five eggs of poor quality. Facing the possibility of the cycle failing completely, they received the news that one precious embryo made it. Caitlyn reflects on the emotional rollercoaster – the comfort of relinquishing control to the process, but also the profound loneliness, especially when keeping the journey private from others, including her older children. A Seasoned Mum's Perspective: Ten years on from her last pregnancy, Caitlyn shares how her approach to motherhood has shifted. This time, she's intentionally choosing to "take it slow," rejecting the pressure to "bounce back" or rush through the demanding early years. She emphasizes the wisdom of cocooning, setting realistic expectations, and knowing that the intense season of raising young children does pass, allowing time for personal and professional goals later. It's about savouring the moments and not needing to prove anything. Maternal Mental Health: Caitlyn underscores the importance of support systems for maternal well-being. She stresses building a "village" – whether through family, friends, antenatal groups, or paid help like nannies (even if it requires financial sacrifices). Partner involvement is key. Crucially, Caitlyn shares her own powerful story of recognising she wasn't coping after her second child and seeking help via her GP and antidepressants, highlighting the need to destigmatise seeking medical or therapeutic support when needed. Understanding and addressing your own emotional needs is fundamental.Why Listen? This episode is essential listening for anyone navigating fertility challenges, contemplating a later-in-life baby, seeking encouragement in their faith journey, or wanting practical advice on protecting maternal mental health and embracing a gentler approach to parenting.

Wie soll ich dankbar sein, wenn mein größter Wunsch unerfüllt bleibt? Vielleicht kennst du diesen Gedanken – und das Gefühl von Ohnmacht, das ihn begleitet. In dieser Folge spreche ich mit dir über die leise, aber unglaublich tragende Kraft der Dankbarkeit. Nicht als Pflichtgefühl oder toxische Positivität. Sondern als bewusste, mitfühlende Haltung, die dich mitten im Schmerz und in der Unsicherheit des Kinderwunschs zurück ins Leben führen kann. Du erfährst: ✨ warum Dankbarkeit im Kinderwunsch oft schwerfällt – und warum das okay ist ✨ was Dankbarkeit wirklich bedeutet (und was nicht!) ✨ wie du inmitten von Traurigkeit und Zweifel kleine Anker im Jetzt setzen kannst ✨ warum echte Gefühle der Schlüssel zu innerem Frieden sind ✨ wie du mit kleinen Ritualen mehr Lebendigkeit und Vertrauen in deinen Alltag bringst Diese Folge ist eine Einladung, mit dem aufzuhören, was dich erschöpft – und zu beginnen, was dich nährt. Als Bonus erwartet dich außerdem eine liebevolle Meditation als separate Folge: „Inneres Lächeln“ – eine Reise zu deiner Dankbarkeit und Lebendigkeit.

„Na? Wann bekommst du Kinder?“ – Für viele eine harmlose Frage, für Nova Meierhenrich ein schmerzhafter Reminder. Nach Jahren der Kinderwunschbehandlung in Dänemark – mit Insemination, künstlicher Befruchtung und ICSI – musste sie ihren Traum vom eigenen Kind aufgeben. Ohne Happy End. Ohne Antworten. In dieser bewegenden Folge spricht Nova darüber, wie es ist, unfreiwillig kinderlos zu sein, warum die K-Frage so übergriffig ist und wie sie mit den Erwartungen von außen umgeht.

Whenever Kristy struggled with anxiety or depression in the past, she coped by keeping herself busy. Even when she endured years and years of IVF and ICSI, she coped by keeping herself busy. But when she experienced birth trauma and a sudden decline in her mental health during postpartum, none of her previous coping mechanisms could be relied on. Instead of throwing herself into exercising three times a day, working on weekends, starting projects, learning a new skill, doing puzzles, building Lego, or reading, Kristy was confronted by the stillness of motherhood. Then, after nine months of depression, culminating in suicidal ideation, Kristy went to her GP for help, where she was confronted by an unexpected, but enlightening, diagnosis: ADHD. In this heartfelt and insightful episode, Kristy shares the many ways she is managing her ADHD and mental health in motherhood, while reflecting on the lessons she has learnt along her journey and celebrating all the friends who have helped her every step of the way. If you're an older mum, if you're a mum who has undergone fertility treatments, if you're a mum with a history of anxiety or depression, if you're a mum who is navigating ADHD in motherhood, or if you're just an all-round awesome human being, then this episode is for you.   EPISODE SPONSOR This episode of Perinatal Stories Australia is proudly sponsored by Mums Matter Psychology—because your mental health matters. Frances and her expert team of psychologists, social workers, and occupational therapists are passionate about providing affordable, high-quality mental health care for pregnant women and parents with children up to 4 years old. Through Medicare bulk-billed therapy sessions—up to 20 at no cost to you—they make support accessible to everyone. If you're in Victoria, visit one of their welcoming clinic locations. Outside Victoria? Their nationwide Telehealth services bring care to your fingertips. Mums Matter Psychology also offers a range of online therapy groups and webinars, providing additional ways to access support and connect with others on a similar journey. Ready to take the next step? Visit mumsmatterpsychology.com to learn more and book your appointment today.   FOLLOW the podcast on Instagram and Facebook @perinatalstoriesaustralia for more maternal mental health stories, education, advocacy, and community. PLEASE leave a review or rating on your favourite apps or consider buying me a coffee (well, preferably a tea!) :) VISIT the website perinatalstoriesaustralia.com to share your story or to see more content from the podcast guests. MADE WITH LOVE by Rebecca (host, founder, storyteller) x

On today's episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I welcome Kerry Hinds @fertilebodyyoga, founder of Fertile Body Yoga, who shares her inspiring fertility journey and how yoga became an essential part of her path to motherhood. Kerry opens up about her struggles with infertility, navigating IVF abroad, and ultimately conceiving naturally after stepping away from treatments. She also discusses the benefits of fertility yoga for calming the nervous system, enhancing blood flow, and creating a supportive environment for conception. In this episode, you'll learn how yoga can help balance your nervous system, why feeling safe is essential for fertility, and practical ways to integrate fertility yoga into your daily routine. This heartfelt conversation is filled with wisdom, hope, and practical tips for anyone on their fertility journey. Key Takeaways:  Kerry's personal fertility journey and challenges with IVF The pivotal moment when she conceived naturally after stepping away from treatments How fertility yoga supports the nervous system and reproductive health The importance of feeling safe and creating space within the body Practical tips on incorporating breathwork, movement, and mindfulness for fertility Guest Bio: Kerry Hinds @fertilebodyyoga is a certified E-RYT, RPYT, Relax and Renew® teacher, fertility yoga instructor, and Reiki practitioner. She founded Fertile Body Yoga to support individuals on their fertility journeys. Drawing from her personal experiences with fertility challenges, including undergoing treatments and experiencing pregnancy loss, Kerry offers compassionate guidance to her students. She leads weekly fertility yoga classes and provides various mind-body support programs through the Fertile Body Yoga Virtual Studio. Kerry is also the host of the "Fringe Fertility" podcast, where she explores holistic and alternative approaches to enhancing fertility. Websites/Social Media Links: Learn more about Kerry HindsFollow Kerry Hinds on Instagram Listen to her podcast: The Fringe Fertility For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com To learn more about ancient wisdom and fertility, you can get Michelle's book at: https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility The Wholesome Fertility facebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/ Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/ ---------------- Transcript: # TWF: Kerry Hinds [00:00:00] Episode number 329 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. My guest today is Carrie Hines. Carrie is the owner and founder of Fertile Body Yoga, a virtual yoga studio that is dedicated to supporting women navigating their fertility journey. She offers both live stream and on demand fertility yoga classes. and small group programs that embrace the complete journey physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, and socially. Carrie has been teaching yoga for over 20 years and has been specializing, teaching, and training almost solely fertility yoga for eight years. Her classes and offerings are informed by her own experiences with pregnancy loss, years of IVF, and eventually completing her family with two children. Carrie has supported thousands of women on their fertility journey so far and is on a mission to help women conceive and birth with yoga and community. Carrie also [00:01:00] hosts Fringe Fertility, a podcast that highlights supportive fertility practices beyond the doctor's office. **Michelle:** Welcome to the podcast. Carrie. I'm so happy to have you. **Kerry:** Thanks for having me, Michelle. I'm so happy to be here and spend some time with you today. **Michelle:** Yes. I would love for you to share your story first of all I love fertility yoga. I always suggest for my patients and my clients to do it It's something that I've personally myself have been really transformed by yoga in general. Many different types of yoga, a huge believer in it. And I also think that it's a, I call it an intelligent exercise. It's something that's been around for thousands of years and [00:02:00] really is a medicine in its own. So I would love for you to share your story and how you personally went through your own journey, but also how you combine fertility with yoga. **Kerry:** Okay. Yeah. I'll try and be a little bit concise cause I could go on and on for the, for a long time about this topic. But you know, as many listeners out there, you know, I didn't really start thinking about having kids till I was in my mid thirties. I took me a while to find the person I wanted to share my DNA with. Right. So when I did, we got married we moved to Germany and We went to Germany with the intention of this would be a good time for me to have kids. He's going to do his PhD. Germany has so many great social supports for families and so on. So we're like, Oh, it's just skim the cream off the top of that social system. And so when we got there, as often [00:03:00] happens, things don't go as planned when it comes to fertility. So we rolled into IUI. So we tried for six months, we found a clinic and. You know, we lived in old Eastern Germany, so it was hard to find English speaking doctors. So it was a very interesting time of my life. Not only was it just stressful in general dealing with what's going on and is this ever going to happen to living in another culture, another country? I didn't have a ton of support around, but then trying to navigate a new language that I was not fluent in. at all. So, I, you know, had one amazing friend there who spoke fluent, fluent German, American woman. And she's like,I will help you. And she went into those appointments with me, **Michelle:** oh **Kerry:** did all the **Michelle:** What a great friend **Kerry:** I know, I know. It was so amazing because I was so [00:04:00] lost at that time trying to figure out, like, just what's going on, but then how to say it in a different language or understand it in a different language. So for anybody who's doing this, fertility journey overseas or is here in North America It's not your mother tongue English, and you're trying to figure it out, I see you, I understand how this can add an extra level of stress to it. So we. You know, during that time, I actually went and did a yoga teacher training cause I was like, this isn't working. I want to do something for myself. So let's go get a yoga teacher training. I'd actually been teaching yoga for years before this was, so I've been teaching yoga for 20 years far before, This, you know, all these 200 hour yoga teacher trainings that, you know, you can sign up for one. No problem now. But back then it was your teacher [00:05:00] tapped you on the shoulder and said, Hey, do you want to be like, let's do this. And so that's kind of how I started yoga. But then when I was in Germany, I was like, okay, I need to, let's make this legit, right? Let's go get the training. I love it. I was teaching in Germany and so on. So that was sort of the, the main integration of the yoga into the fertility journey was just taking that bigger step to get the certification. And then, yeah, we went, we did IUIs. The first IUI was successful in that I got pregnant and, you know, 10 week ultrasound, there was no heartbeat. So we lost that baby. Yeah, and it was again, different culture, different bedside manners, different, it was just so stark. That's the word I could use for it. Shocking. It was just like, okay. The baby has no heartbeat. We're booking you in tomorrow for a DNC. Be there at 6 a. m. [00:06:00] You know, there was no time to, to, to absorb what was, to breathe, to figure out what I wanted. it was just like this snowball that was just like, okay, this has happened. You're going to do this. You're going to be better than you're going to start again. And you're going to keep trying and trying. So that's a whole other rabbit hole we could go down. But yeah, it was, it was a lot. It was a lot. And so we ended up going to do IVF, and this was, you know, 15 years ago. So things were maybe a little different than they are now. LikeICSI was just sort of a, more of a thing, right? It's Ooh, we're going to do this new cool thing. ICSI. I was like, okay. And they're like, and then there's embryo glue and we'll glue your embryo to your uterus. And it was all cutting edge at this time. And We did it. We did many cycles frozen cycles fresh cycles. Yeah, so many cycles and [00:07:00] nothing stuck, right? We had been doing IVF for two years and we kind of just paused and said, Is this, do we want to keep doing this?is this how we envision our life to be? And we wanted kids for sure, but we also wanted to start living our lives again. So that was a very pivotal moment in our journey is when we stepped away from IVF. We said, okay, we're done. I had gained weight. I wasn't feeling like myself. My body was weirdly puffy in different places and just, I was unhappy and I was emotional and I was just like, let's. Let's, let's walk away. And I remember my fertility doctor at the time, he said, you know, your chances of getting pregnant naturally are like one in a hundred million. Like you shouldn't be walking away from IVF. And I was like, you know, I'm okay. Like [00:08:00] I just, I need a break. And I walked away and a month and a half later I was pregnant. **Michelle:** Wow **Kerry:** intervention. And then nine months postpartum, I also was pregnant again by accident because we thought we had our miracle baby, right? So we were like, okay, whatever. And then I was pregnant again and through the whole journey, I was using yoga for my body, but more so for my energetic health, my mental, emotional health. So when we ended up coming back to the U S and moving to Boston, that was one of the first things I did. I did a prenatal yoga teacher training and I said, Hey, can we do fertility yoga? And she's like,I don't, I'm sure. I have no idea what it is. Tell me what it is. I'm like, either do I, but I'll get back to you. And that's sort of how the fertility yoga started. And [00:09:00] nobody was really doing it eight years ago. It was, **Michelle:** It's true **Kerry:** Like, there was nothing. There was a few people, there was a couple books out on it but I really spent a lot of time explaining. what it was that we were trying to do when we were doing like a fertility focused yoga practice. So that's kind of the story. That's the evolution. **Michelle:** Well, I love the story. I don't love that you went through the suffering through the story But I love the fact that you can it Prove with your story that when people tell you when you hear from doctors that you have one in a million chance or whatever that is, that is not necessarily the truth. That is their opinion. They say it very factually, and I think that that's where it gets very confusing for people. They say it very factually, and I'm not dismissing what doctors say because a lot of times it could be very accurate or they can, but I, I, what I don't love is Is when things are predicted because the body can be [00:10:00] so unpredictable. And it can also show so many signs that defy what it's going to do. So that's where, you know, I say just have an open mind or getting a second opinion is great. So, but I do love hearing those stories because I think when people who are going through that now and are probably listening to fertility podcasts because they want to get. Answers and hear other people's stories and when they hear stories like that it sparks some hope in their hearts So I think that that's really important **Kerry:** Yeah, I often get Students they'll ask me well what was it like right because this is what we want This is people don't want to do IVF if they don't have to and they're like, what was it? what happened and I was like, I cannot tell you I can't tell you a hundred percent that it was the yoga that I was doing or you know All the other lifestyle changes I was doing but something came [00:11:00] together You magically all together at the right time and this baby happened and if I had to choose one word for it, it would be exhale because there was this feeling that my body was no longer having to perform like it felt safe because I wasn't going in for you know, all these procedures and like they're. You know, minimally invasive, but you're still like vaginal ultrasounds and people poking around down there and all the operations that come with it. Anesthesia, all those sorts of things. And yeah, it's, it's a lot. So my body was like, whew, thank you. Thank you. Let me just be. And I think the mental piece was just like that. I wasn't going to go back to it. At least anytime soon. So my, my body was actually believing [00:12:00] me, right? And I don't think it's It's something that you can fake. It's not a time, like I had to go through those two years of IVF and pregnancy loss to get to that point. I don't think that there's we can't just kind of skip over it and be like, Oh, I'm just going to think this now and I'm going to get pregnant naturally. So it's a process. That's it. you know, everybody's journey is different and we just need to give ourselves a little bit of space sometimes to integrate what's going on and give our bodies that exhale, which is so important. Mm. **Michelle:** I love that you say that because actually exhaling longer can simulate your, parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest mode, which many times the majority of us in response to life are in the fight or flight mode. And especially when we feel unsafe. And I love that you use the word safe because when we feel unsafe, Then [00:13:00] we're really not in a creative mode. We don't create even like mentally when we're not feeling safe. **Kerry:** Yeah. **Michelle:** When we feel safe, we're able to create, we're able to let go and our body's able to create, and that's a, it's a state of growth. So I love that you talk about that. And I think that one of the commonalities between yoga and acupuncture, which actually they're related in  many ways. And because it's really about moving the energy because yoga is connected to Ayurveda. Ayurveda has Marma points and yoga is actually a branch of Ayurveda. it's part of the medicine of the physicality of the body and moving the energy. **Kerry:** Yep. **Michelle:** Qigong is sort of the yoga of Chinese medicine. So it's very related. And I think one of the biggest commonalities or one of the ways I think it really works is it's all about the nervous system. **Kerry:** 100 percent it, the nervous system. Like when I, [00:14:00] even these days I, when I'm talking to somebody, I'm like, I'm talking to a person. Yes. But I'm interacting with a nervous system. So with the words that I'm saying my body language or how I look at them, right? Like it, it all is interacting with third nervous system. So how are we working with nervous systems? And when we show up, in fertility world supporting people. For me, the huge part of fertility yoga is how do we harness this parasympathetic, I call it rest, digest and reproduce. That's what I call it, just  **Michelle:** Yeah. I love that. Yes. **Kerry:** Because what it is, it **Michelle:** Yup. **Kerry:** It's what yoga is so good at, sadly, right? Like our Western culture view of yoga has been a little focused almost exclusively on exercise and gymnastic style yoga. But [00:15:00] really traditionally, like you said, it was about the marma. It was about the energetic lines running through you and wherever you find that imbalance, you can work with the energetic field to create balance again. And as you know, the Marma points and acupuncture and pressure points are like following very similar lines and it's powerful. But it's subtle, right?  **Michelle:** Right. it's **Kerry:** explain. Yeah, like it's hard to explain exactly what's happening but it is, it's so powerful and it can really be transformative for how we, how we navigate the journey as embracing that, the quiet side, the quiet side of things. **Michelle:** Yes. And I think that the way we connect with it is through feeling. Right. Because that is ultimately how we do it, but we can't feel or pay attention to what we're feeling when we're distracted all the time by the noise of the world. So we're constantly disrupted by the [00:16:00] noise. It's very disrupting actually for our nervous system. We don't realize it because we're so used to it. You could be used to things that are really not healthy for you and listen, you know, hearing the outside noise. And the loud noises of construction, you know, the normal life, if you're living in the city, the constant sirens and honking, and, you know, those things are actually very taxing on the nervous system. And they put us in a fight or flight mode because our bodies don't really recognize them isn't in the natural world. So it stimulates a more fight and flight response. So having that counter balance with practices like yoga. In calming the nervous system. And what I love about yoga is that it includes breath, all the things that really stimulate the vagus nerve mantra sound. So you're able to tune your vibration and breath. Which is also very calming because if you exhale longer, like there's certain controlled breath [00:17:00] where you're able to control your brain through breath and even movement, somatic energy work and emotions that we can at least much more easily, like that control, but manage with our  bodies.  **Kerry:** Yeah. I couldn't say it better myself, Michelle. That was perfect. I think one thing, right, like we, we, we know that the fertility journey is stressful. We know that life is stressful. We know that we're probably living in a heightened state in our sympathetic more than we, we would like to. And yeah, the yoga piece can just. hit so many things. And one thing we need to remember is that we are created like evolutionarily are, you know, we are more attuned to the stresses, right? For survival. So the loud, the loud noises, it [00:18:00] alerts us to look around and see, Oh, is there something coming for me? Or the bright lights and things like that. Like we're just constantly Like our bodies are looking out to keep us safe all the time. And we're tuned to that, right, that our bodies are naturally tuned to go in that direction. And there's way more stimuli that will take us that way. And then with the other side, the parasympathetic, we have to work harder and more intentionally to go there. And I think that is one of the things that is the hardest is you actually need to train the system to be more fluid. It's not the stress isn't going to go away. Stress isn't going to go away, but if you are training your nervous system to float more evenly back and forth between the two and taking the time to go parasympathetic as best that you can, whether it's with the breath or [00:19:00] with yoga or going for a walk in nature or anything like that You're rebalancing, but we have to make more effort that is just the way we're, we're built. And yeah, like things that will help us be calmer are like dim lights, quietude, support. So like lying down flat. So our body doesn't have to be alert, like even sitting, we have to be alert.  So we might not fall over weight. Unless you're claustrophobic, of course so yeah, there's lots of things that we can add, and yoga does that. Restorative yoga, which is a huge piece of how I teach fertility yoga it, that is what it does. those are the things that we're embracing when we do restorative yoga.  **Michelle:** I love restorative yoga. **Kerry:** Me too.  **Michelle:** Oh, it feels so good. It really just feels so good. And you know what? I love to. I remember taking a yoga class and the teacher after we're laying in Shavasana said, allow the ground to support [00:20:00] you. And I'm like, just the thought of that changes. My experience laying down right now **Kerry:** Yes. Yes I say that too in my yoga classes or I'm like the earth is coming up to hold you and you Let the earth hold you like it's like a two way street. It's like here I am I'm here, but you need to let go into it too. Yeah, it, there's so many wonderful things about restorative yoga. I mean, it's not the only part of fertility yoga the way I teach it, but it is definitely a huge part of what I like to emphasize to help train the nervous system that like,  Oh, Oh, I remember this place of calm and safety, right? And then if we can condition it with at the beginning of every Shavasana or every restorative yoga pose, you do three big, deep breaths, long exhales. The body then starts to put it all together. and [00:21:00] say, Oh, when she takes three big, long, deep breaths, it's time to relax. It's time to release and let go. So we can, there's so much we could do to support ourselves on that level, I think. But yeah, society makes it hard. **Michelle:** Right, so it's almost like a triggering relaxation response To something that you repeat over and over again I always say likeif you do meditation and you burn a specific incense That's clean or something that I'm even in the central oil Like diffuse a specific one every single time you start to meditate you're immediately going to It's almost like pavlov's dog. You're always going to associate it with meditation time and our scent brings us Right there because it's so connected our olfactory nerve, which is really responsible for our sense of smell Is connected to our brains directly **Kerry:** Yeah. And certain smells will be more grounding and, you know, so choose your smells. wisely, I would say, you know, where like,citrus [00:22:00] and high notes are a little bit more stimulating where like the deeper tones like sandalwood and like the earthy green trees, those sorts of things can just be really calming. And then plus the volatile oils that are in evergreen trees are calming to the nervous system. **Michelle:** Yeah. It's not amazing. **Kerry:** You know, so why not put those in your diffuser like use all the tools that you can and and and then things smell good **Michelle:** Yeah.  **Kerry:** like  I just  **Michelle:** who doesn't like that? **Kerry:** Yeah Yeah, **Michelle:** That's awesome. So just take people through, likeif they've never really heard of fertility yoga, like what differentiates fertility yoga from regular yoga  or other types of yoga? **Kerry:** Whoo. So the first I would say are the people that are in the class so it is just really dedicated to holding space for those that are trying to conceive and it can be anybody from, Oh, I'm just [00:23:00] thinking about it, but I, my periods have been a little weird all my life. I just want to get in tune with my body to those who have, you know, eighth round of IVF, like really deep into the journey. So I think the community piece is really important because, People like to be seen and understood. And when we do a check in at the beginning of our classes, even though it's online and there's all these little squares and so on on the Zoom room, people, you see people nodding and oh, and like sending hearts and doing all the things. And just creating community around that as opposed to if you went to a regular yoga class and you walked up to your teacher and said, Oh, by the way, I'm doing a stim cycle right now. They're not going to know what to do with you. They're not going to know how to keep you safe, nor are they going to know how to nurture that part of the cycle. So that's the 2nd piece is. Becoming or recognizing [00:24:00] where you are in your cycle and then matching the energies of that time. So follicular phase is a little more. Woo woo, woo hoo, right? Springtime, and follicles are growing, you have more energy because of the hormones, and an ovulation, you're just like the queen bee, right? So these are the energies that we would say, okay, if you're in the follicular phase, you're gonna do this twist, and so on, and blah blah blah. And then you would say, okay, oh, you're in the luteal phase, things are a little quieter, You might be pregnant, you're in the two week wait, you're post transfer, you're stimming, like all these things, then we need to be a little quieter with the body and give the pelvic area a little bit more space. So we would work with that and do some modifications for that. So really following the cycle. So when I'm teaching, I'm constantly, Okay, if you're in the follicular phase, you're going to do this. If you're in the luteal phase, you're going to [00:25:00] do this. So not only am I keeping people safe, but I'm also like finding the nourishing pieces as well. So it's like,I'm boosting that energy and keeping you safe where you wouldn't be able to do that in a regular class. And then the movement piece. Is really just like slow flow, somatic movement, a lot of it's pelvic centered, but not always because we hold tension and all different places in our body, the chakra system, the energetic system, right? We want it flowing as well as possible for many reasons. So it's lots of ooey gooey, juicy sort of moves in and around the pelvis. So what else did I forget? Oh, and of course the yoga wisdom part of it, right? The energetics, the, the wisdom. So I teach, I'm very thematic when I teach. So I will choose a theme and it may [00:26:00] come from yoga. For example, I did a class or I'm doing a series right now. We're doing an elemental series. So it's five weeks. Perfect. Five elements. Let's do this in yoga anyway, or in Ayurveda. So I'm like, we started with earth, like, why is earth, why is grounding important in fertility, then water and fire and so on. So, yeah, just bringing a new perspective into it, like something to be like, oh, okay, I get it. I get that, I need to be grounded and feel safe for fertility to I don't want to say be boosted, but to be, to feel safe, your body, or to be working at full capacity, whatever is happening in your body, your body needs to feel safe for the fertility hormones. Whew.  **Michelle:** I'm sure there's a lot more even that you might not even realize it, you know, because when we feel safe, I [00:27:00] mean, there's so many things that our bodies naturally do. And our bodies are so intelligent. And it puts us into a growth cycle in general, like our bodies are able to regenerate and repair when it feels like it's getting rest, the proper rest. So, also uh, something that I've noticed, and I do have some patients, it's really interesting because it kind of correlates with jaw tension, but it usually correlates with hip tension. **Kerry:** Hip and pelvic floor, probably. Yeah. **Michelle:** And so that's something that I always think about with fertility yoga is really kind of like getting that area more free because it correlates to the first and second chakra. And the first chakra is really that rooted chakra, the place that we feel safe, and that holds up the second chakra, which is really where our fertility is. So in order to have that active, you know, it depends on that foundation of safety. **Kerry:** Yeah. **Michelle:** So also the blood flow, I'm [00:28:00] sure. **Kerry:** Oh, yeah. Yeah. See, there's so much. I like so many things. But yeah, so that somatic slow flow movement that's pelvic centered, of course, it's like, it's energetic, like bringing energy in and like moving energy, which is really important when we're in our lifestyle of sitting stagnant a lot of the time. And yeah, the blood flow, Like this gentle squeeze and release, right? Like it's constantly bringing in new oxygenated blood into the organs of the pelvis. And I think often in yoga, we don't think, we don't think about the organ level. when we're moving our bodies. And that's what I love about the Ayurvedic yoga. It's more okay, this is happening in your body. let's look at the liver, right? So you're doing side bends and the liver and the spleen and just incorporating more of those, organs, like the systems of the body. It's not just about. the [00:29:00] large muscle groups and releasing tension, which feels great and is lovely and good for energy and marma points and things like that. But we can also work at the organ level and the hormonal level. **Michelle:** Yeah, for sure. And do you also include pranayama? Yeah. **Kerry:** I do breath work. I don't do we're going to do half an hour pranayama every time, but I will integrate breath work or pranayama techniques. When they're suited for the theme or what we're doing with our bodies, sometimes mudra as well. So like, let's, Which is our hand gesture. Yeah. It's like a seal. **Michelle:** again, see, it relates to the meridians and the energetic connections in the body. It's like our body's like a circuit. So putting our fingers together in certain positions will actually link that circuit and, and have it continue. **Kerry:** Yeah, yeah, and [00:30:00] I was never really into mudras  for quite a while of my yoga journey like I was like Oh, yeah, let's I'm gonna stick my fingers together do whatever all the things that you know Yeah, mudra and so on that you see all the time and then someone actually sat down and we we I learned and I experimented with like slowly touching your fingers together and then like you know, do you want to increase something or decrease something, et cetera. And it was actually very profound.  And that energetic piece, I believe it, and it's now Ayurveda as well. And in yoga, energy is the thing that connects. The element that connects body and mind. Right. We're always talking about body and mind, but what is it that's, that's going on to connect those two? It's the energetic body. And pretty soon I am hoping western science will get on [00:31:00] board. It slowly **Michelle:** It is. It's really fascinating. I mean, that's a lot of Dr. Joe dispenses. He's always talking about like energy frequencies, and he talks about how we can connect and he does a lot of scientific research on it actually. So he looks at the brain waves and how they respond to certain meditations and certain energy movements. He does also breath a specific breath. And a lot of people have Kundalini awakenings. That's what it, I mean, he doesn't call it that. He talks about it more scientific and he talks about chakras. He doesn't call it chakras. He calls it energy centers. And it's basically the same thing that we've been, you know, we've been taught years ago, thousands of years ago. And ultimately, I mean, people are having Kundalini rising. They, they see this light, they feel this incredible energy just shooting through their spine from the base. It opens up cause that's where the Kundalini of people haven't really learned about that. They say that there's this [00:32:00] dormant energy at the root of your spine. That's always there, but it's sleeping. And so sometimes  doing. Yep. And when we do breath work or certain types of exercises, it can actually awaken that when that awakens, a lot of people have spontaneous healing, spontaneous remission, and it's really fascinating. So his work is also very much based on quantum physics. And if you look at a lot of the old work and teachings of ancient cultures. They describe pretty much what we're learning as quantum physics. And it ultimately comes down to the fact that we are mostly energy and much, much, much, much less matter than we really think we are. We're like 0. 0000001. It's like a million tons of zeros. And then one, that's how our matter is. And if we actually Take it like the space actually is way more in between the [00:33:00] particles in our bodies and just what we  see. So it's kind of like an illusion. It's really fascinating. So we really are vibratory beings, which is why vibration sound really impacts our bodies. I can nerd. I  **Kerry:** I, I'm going to go, I'm going  to,  **Michelle:** all day long. **Kerry:** I know me too. Well, I, well, there's two things I wanted to talk about, but first I want to talk about space and spaciousness, openness. And I often say to my students, like magic happens in the space. So when we think about the body, We need space in our body, openness, spaciousness, for our body to function, right? between the synapses, there's a little gap, right? It's tiny,  but it's there. And that we have, we need to have space, the womb, let's not forget, that is space. openness, spaciousness, [00:34:00] right? we have to have space in our digestive track and air and things like that to keep it moving. And now I'm like going off the deep end and also Ayurveda of course, right? anything that is moving in our body is the air and ether element and ether is spaciousness, it's openness. And so I often emphasize this idea you in class of creating space. When we move our pelvis, we're creating space. We're opening up, we're releasing blocked energy, if you will, or like stagnant blood, like we are getting things moving. And when things are moving, the magic happens, right? Like the space, we need that spaciousness. Oh yeah. I  **Michelle:** that.  **Kerry:** Yeah. The **Michelle:** Well, it's, it's so cool. I mean, cause, cause that's one of the things that Joe Dispenza does is he first, he almost puts you in an induction with his [00:35:00] meditations and he says space, and he wants you to focus on like this endless space. But the reason why is there's a rhyme. There's a reason for everything that he does is that when our minds focus on space, it actually creates. I don't know how to how he described it. Actually. I mean, I go to so many of his stuff, but I don't remember everything but he said that when you do that, I think it takes you almost to a different mind. Mental frequency brainwave when you start to focus on space. **Kerry:** Well, so Yoga Nidra, which we had talked about previously, but Yoga Nidra, which is like a 5, 000 year old technique that the yogis came up with it is about, it is about that. It is about slowing down your brainwave to delta wave, which is what your brainwaves would be like if you were in deep sleep. And why do we love deep sleep so much? Because that's when we heal, that's when we [00:36:00] process and calibrate and so on. Our organs are doing their cleaning up and all that and it's so important and it's definitely related to fertility that deep sleep state. And Yeah, with Yoga Nidra, we're purposefully going there, but being conscious when we're there. So it's an experience that we would never do. We would never get to that state on our, on our own naturally. Like we'd either be in deep sleep or we wouldn't be in Delta. So this is what I love about Yoga Nidra. And like you were saying, just even the concept of thinking about. Space or expansiveness or you know, you're in an airplane, you look out the window and all you see is infinite space. it never ends. It just goes on and on and on. Right. But yeah, it does, slow us down. It slows down the brainwave so we can get out of the, the gamma or the, you know what we're in right now [00:37:00] talking. **Michelle:** Yes. And it also gives you a sense of freedom. You just feel this like sense of peace and freedom from that space. Cause then you're like, ah, you know, there's just so much, and there's so many possibilities and it's open. And so for people actually who have not heard of yoga, Nidra, can you explain what it is exactly? **Kerry:** Okay. So yoga nidra, like I said, it's thousands of years old. It has so many benefits. I mean, it's so many like deep healing, but also like physical deep healing, but also mental emotional. So it takes, you know, sort of these deeply ingrained, maybe even ancestral patterns that we have, we can start to change those patterns. The body can process all of those things. It's so, it's. It's, it's the Soma we say in yoga, it's the sweet nectar. [00:38:00] It's the nectar that we want for our bodies, especially during fertility, but also to for overall health and longevity. We want to have that sweetness and that nectar in us. And what I use it for, I do a ton of Yoga Nidra in classes. It is It is a progressive deep relaxation technique. It that it has been, Huberman has taken it and called it non sleep deep rest because it's more palpable to Western mind. So it's been an eye rest and all these things. So it's yoga nidra has been taken and repackaged in many different ways for our Western minds. I love the traditional one. Of course, I'm sure you probably do too. And. Yeah, you just, you go  ## Marker **Kerry:** progressively to put your body to sleep. So you go through body parts and you relax those body parts and we can, instill or implant a message. [00:39:00] We call it sankalpa, but you can call it whatever you want. Affirmation, it's not quite the right word. Intention maybe of what deep healing you want to happen. And that's sort of implanted throughout the deep relaxation part. And then yoga nidra is actually a state. It's not the progress of getting there. So yoga nidra is when you are, your body's asleep, you're conscious. But your brain is in these sort of Delta waves and sometimes you get there, sometimes you don't, and sometimes the journey is joyful to, to get there too, right? So it's not oh, you have to get to that state to get any benefit. You're still getting all that parasympathetic work going on. The body feels safe and protected. And most people feel very blissful. afterwards, they often say, Oh, it's like hypnotic that there's like this [00:40:00] hypnosis. And my voice too, I think it's like low and like kind of slow and steady. They're like, Oh, I just hear your voice and I start to relax. Right. So it is a really powerful tool. And if I were to choose one thing, like people say, what yoga pose should I do to help my fertility? If I could choose one thing I would say do Yoga Nidra for at least 40 days straight **Michelle:** Yeah, **Kerry:** and see what happens. I think it's perfect. And I have a program, 40 days, a 40 day program where you have the option to do Yoga Nidra every day if you wanted to, or meditation. So yeah, it's, it's perfect. It's really powerful. really **Michelle:** is so cool. And I'm excited actually to have you as a guest contributor to my fertility hypnosis toolbox. Soon. I know a lot of people, listeners are probably on there, so you guys I'll be very excited. I think by the [00:41:00] time this is out, probably going to  **Kerry:** it. to you. I promise. I will do it. I feel honored  **Michelle:** have time. you have time.  **Kerry:** Yeah, I  know. But I wanted to make it, this is me. I want to make it, I don't want to just maybe take an old recording that, you know, It's, you know, been out there for a while. Like I want to make new things for you and also like, where do we need the yoga nidra the most? Like the two week wait, perfect time, um, after law. So you know, I want to theme them so that there's it hits home for what people need the most. **Michelle:** Well, I'm so grateful for that and I'm grateful for this conversation. I think this is awesome. I can nerd out on this stuff  **Kerry:** too. Me too. Me too. I **Michelle:** I think we're on the same page. **Kerry:** I am **Michelle:** fascinating.  **Kerry:** nerdy about it. And, **Michelle:** Yeah. **Kerry:** and, I mean, I know, I love what you do. All the messaging that you're sending out there to those that are on this journey, I think it's so valuable and, [00:42:00] and needed. we need more voices that are like, here, right? here, **Michelle:**  the ancient stuff, kind of like the bridging that ancient wisdom, that ancient nurturing, really connecting with nature. Cause I know that you also are a big fan of nature and being out in nature. And I think that really just kind of coming home to like our authentic authenticity of, as humans, and sort of the tribalness that, you know, coming home to really our roots and the sacredness that we have also as women. I think that that's there's so much power in that. And I think that a lot of people are thirsting for that. And that's why I nerd out on this. I say, it's you know, I could say my brain nerds out now, but I think my soul nerds **Kerry:** Mm. Oh, I love that. Yes, my soul nerds out on it. That is so good. I love that. I'm gonna use it  if I  can't  **Michelle:** said, well, Carrie, like I, we had such a great conversation also on your podcast, **Kerry:** yes  **Michelle:** guys. Yes. I highly recommend you guys [00:43:00] check out her podcasts. Fringe fertility. So it is definitely like something that I highly suggest. Cause you're going to get more of this amazing conversation on there and she has other guests on there. So yeah, very  **Kerry:** thanks for the shout out for the podcast. Thank you. Yeah. Well, it was a pleasure to be here today and sharing this conversation. I could just do it forever and ever. **Michelle:** for sure. And also before we go, how can people find you? What are the best ways? **Kerry:** sure. So yeah, I have a website Fertile Body Yoga. So it's a virtual yoga studio dedicated to fertility. So fertilebodyyoga. com. That's probably the, the lead in place to find me. I'm on Instagram as well. I'm not a huge Instagrammer though. And lately, I'm feeling like I just might need to walk away because for my mental health. But I do have an Instagram account. It is fertile body yoga there. And yeah, like I'm always doing [00:44:00] some great collaborative workshops and I have a retreat coming up at the end of April. You can cut this out if it's not the right timing, but so an in person retreat in New Hampshire at the end of April with. Two lovely co creators. So that, that's the big thing. That is huge. This has been years in the making and it's  finally  **Michelle:** That's so exciting. Well, congratulations. That's really cool. **Kerry:** Yeah. Thank you. **Michelle:** Awesome. Well, Carrie, this has been a pleasure and we really do have great conversations. I could tell you that we definitely are very aligned in a lot of the way we view the body and really view the fertility journey. And also thank you for sharing your own experience and now sharing your story. Cause I think that a lot of people will be inspired by that as well. So thank you so much. This has been amazing. Perfect.  **Kerry:** Thank you. for having me.[00:45:00] [00:46:00]     

Manchmal ist es nicht nur der Körper, der eine Schwangerschaft schwieriger macht – sondern möglicherweise auch das Unterbewusstsein. Unbewusste Glaubenssätze können wirken wie eine unsichtbare „Anti-Baby-Pille“ und den Kinderwunsch sabotieren. Doch warum ist das so? Und wie kannst du deine eigenen blockierenden Überzeugungen erkennen und transformieren? In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ Warum dein Unterbewusstsein dich manchmal „schützen“ will – auch wenn es dich eventuell davon abhält, schwanger zu werden ✨ Wie Glaubenssätze aus deiner Vergangenheit noch heute deine Ziele beeinflussen können ✨ Welche typischen Überzeugungen rund um Schwangerschaft, Geburt, Muttersein und Partnerschaft dich unbewusst bremsen können ✨ Eine kraftvolle Körperübung, mit der du herausfindest, ob dein Unterbewusstsein noch an alten Schutzmechanismen festhält ✨ Wie du hinderliche Überzeugungen bewusst umformulieren kannst, um sie in unterstützende Gedanken zu verwandeln Dein Unterbewusstsein kann dein größter Verbündeter sein – sobald du ihm die richtigen Impulse gibst. Lass uns gemeinsam herausfinden, welche Überzeugungen dich möglicherweise (noch) blockieren und wie du sie sanft in ein „Ja“ zu deiner Schwangerschaft transformieren kannst.

IVF can feel overwhelming, but understanding the process step by step can make it much more manageable. In this episode, I'm joined by Salu Ribeiro, an experienced embryologist, to break down the nuts and bolts of IVF. Salu shares his expertise on everything from egg retrieval to embryo development, explaining what happens in the lab and why each stage of the process is so important. We discuss how embryologists assess egg and sperm quality, what makes a strong embryo, and how technology is improving IVF success rates. Whether you're just starting your fertility journey or in the middle of an IVF cycle, this conversation will give you the knowledge and confidence to navigate the process. In this episode, we cover: What happens during egg retrieval and fertilization How embryologists evaluate embryo quality The role of ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) in IVF How technology, like time-lapse imaging, is improving embryo selection Common misconceptions about IVF success rates Tips for patients going through IVF Read the full show notes on my website. Find Salu Ribeiro here. IVF Class: Do you have questions about IVF? Click here to join me for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, March 10, 2025, at 4pm PST, where I'll explain IVF and Egg Freezing, and there will be time to ask your questions live on Zoom. Other ways to reach me: Visit my YouTube channel for more fertility tips! Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates. Join Egg Whisperer School. Request a Consultation with me. Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well-known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org.

Es geht endlich los! Die Türen zu meinem Gruppenprogramm "Kinderwunsch-Zirkel" sind geöffnet für dich! Hier kannst du buchen: https://praxis-appia.de/kinderwunsch-zirkel/ Solange es den Early Bird-Preis gibt (übrigens beinhaltet der auch eine 1:1 Session mit mir!), werde ich einen Impuls pro Tag veröffentlichen. Schau mal, was der mit dir macht! Danke fürs Zuhören! Wenn du Fragen hast, dann schreib mir eine Mail an veraenderung@praxis-appia.de

Join Dr. Carrie Bedient from the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, Dr. Abby Eblen from Nashville Fertility Center, and Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas Fertility Center as we delve into listener questions about the complexities of failed IVF cycles, offering insights and hope for young couples facing infertility challenges. We explore factors contributing to poor implantation after frozen embryo transfers and discuss advanced diagnostic tools like the ReceptivaDx, ALICE, and EMMA assays, which help identify underlying issues such as endometriosis and uterine microbiome imbalances. We also examine the sperm QT test to determine the necessity of ICSI in subsequent cycles. Our conversation covers the pros and cons of modified natural cycles versus programmed cycles, the role of laparoscopy in evaluating endometriosis, and strategies for managing PCOS, particularly when egg maturity is a concern. We provide guidance on treatment adjustments after one or multiple failed cycles, discuss the appropriateness of using Lovenox, and consider when hysteroscopy is indicated for detecting polyps. Join us for a comprehensive discussion aimed at empowering couples on their fertility journey. Have questions about infertility?  Visit FertilityDocsUncensored.com to ask our docs. Selected questions will be answered anonymously in future episodes.

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre la #FIV e #ICSI? En el episodio de hoy la Dra. Azul Torres es acompañada por las embriólogas Beatriz Martínez y Marcela Fragoso, y el biólogo Yaser Aldajani, de #AdvancedFertilityCenterCancún, hablarán un poco sobre estos procedimientos de reproducción asistida.La fertilización in vitro (FIV) y la inyección intracitoplasmática de espermatozoides (ICSI) son dos de las técnicas de reproducción asistida más avanzadas, utilizadas para ayudar a personas y parejas con dificultades para concebir.Ambas tienen como objetivo fecundar un óvulo fuera del cuerpo para luego transferir el embrión al útero, pero se diferencian en la forma en que se lleva a cabo la fertilización.Ambas técnicas ofrecen grandes posibilidades de éxito, y la elección entre una u otra depende del diagnóstico de cada paciente.Un especialista en fertilidad podrá evaluar la situación y recomendar el tratamiento más adecuado para lograr el embarazo deseado.➡️ MÁS RECURSOS INFORMATIVOS

Wenn Du schon lange auf Dein Wunder wartest, kennst Du es sicher: Die endlosen Gedanken, die Kontrolle, die Angst, etwas falsch zu machen. Aber wusstest Du, dass Dein Geist und Dein Körper ein Team sind und direkt miteinander kommunizieren? In dieser Folge tauchen wir tief in die Verbindung zwischen Psyche und Fruchtbarkeit ein. Ich teile mit Dir wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse, spannende Studien und vor allem praktische Ansätze, die Dir helfen können, Deinen Körper und Deine Emotionen auf Deinem Kinderwunsch-Weg zu unterstützen. Du erfährst: ✨ Warum Stress Deine Fruchtbarkeit beeinflussen kann – und wie Du ihn gezielt reduzierst ✨ Welche Studien zeigen, dass mentale und emotionale Arbeit die Schwangerschaftsrate erhöhen kann ✨ Praktische Übungen, die Du direkt anwenden kannst, um mehr Vertrauen in Deinen Körper zu finden ✨ Wie Du loslassen kannst, ohne Dich dabei machtlos zu fühlen Ich lade Dich ein, diese Methoden für Dich auszuprobieren – und wenn Du tiefer eintauchen möchtest, sichere Dir [Dein kostenfreies Kapitel aus meinem Journal](https://www.sandyurban.com/bonus-podcast) oder vereinbare ein [unverbindliches Erstgespräch mit mir](https://sandyurban.typeform.com/to/ZuHJc2). Du musst diesen Weg nicht allein gehen.

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Forschende haben optimierte Koch-Methode fürs perfekte Ei entwickelt +++ Zusammensetzung der Vaginal-Flora ist weltweit sehr unterschiedlich +++ Erster Känguru-Embryo durch künstliche Befruchtung +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Update-Erde-Podcast zu den Wahl-O-Mat-KlimathemenPeriodic cooking of eggs, In: Communications Engineering, 06.02.2025Diversity in women and their vaginal microbiota , In: Trends in Microbiology, 06.02.2025Urinbasierter Recyclingdünger im Garten: Das citizen science projekt „u-cycle“, Leibniz-Institut für Gemüse- und ZierpflanzenbauSuccessful production of kangaroo ICSI embryos. Reproduction, In: Fertility and Development 37, 2025Alle Quellen findet ihr hier.**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok auf&ab , TikTok wie_geht und Instagram .

I may not be your fertility doctor, but it doesn't matter where you live. If you're thinking about or actively preparing for In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) then I'm so glad to have you here. My intention is to help you get ready for IVF — regardless of who your doctor is or where you live. These are the tips you can apply to your situation to take an active role in your fertility care. Step 1: Know your diagnosis Step 2: Assemble your team Step 3: Get organized & keep track of your files Step 4: Understand medication side effects Step 5: Understand your semen collection options Step 6: Decide if you are going to do IVF with or without ICSI or PICSI Step 7: Decide if you will genetically test the embryos Step 8: Understand if you will be at risk for OHSS Step 9: Prepare for the transfer Read all of the show notes on Dr. Aimee's website Do you have questions about IVF? Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, February 10, 2025 at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips! Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org.

Trying to conceive can be an emotional roller coaster. From tracking cycles to navigating fertility treatments, the whole process can feel overwhelming, especially when you're bombarded with advice, acronyms, and uncertainty. If you've ever wished for a clear, no-stress guide to fertility, this episode is for you.This week, Dr. Renee White sits down with Dr. Cheryl Phua, a fertility specialist at IVF Australia, to break it all down in a way that makes sense. They chat about when to seek fertility support, what treatments like IUI, IVF, and ICSI actually involve, ****and how to take control of your reproductive health, without the confusion or pressure.You'll hear about:Optimising fertility naturally: Small but powerful changes to your lifestyle, diet, and mindset that can make a real difference.When to ask for help: How long to try naturally before considering fertility treatments and what the latest guidelines suggest.Understanding fertility treatments: Breaking down IUI, IVF, and ICSI in simple terms, plus how to know which path might be right for you.Genetic testing and fertility science: How modern technology is helping improve pregnancy outcomes.The emotional side of fertility: Why this journey can feel so overwhelming and how to get the right support along the way.Whether you're at the start of your journey, considering fertility treatment, or just want to understand your options, this episode is packed with practical insights, expert advice, and plenty of reassurance.Resources and Links:Learn more about Dr Renee White and Explore Fill Your Cup Doula ServicesWant to be nurtured and nourished after the birth of your baby, have a peek at our doula offerings.If you want to gobble up our famous Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies, look no further!

Na twee jaar proberen om zwanger te worden krijgen Jennifer en haar partner in een fertiliteitskliniek te horen dat er geen medische oorzaak lijkt te zijn voor een uitblijvende zwangerschap. Na vijf jaar proberen mag ze eindelijk starten met IVF, maar dat gaat op het laatste moment niet door. Na een second opinion komt ze terecht in België voor een ICSI-behandeling. Er gebeurt een wonder, want ze raakt zwanger. De wens voor een tweede kindje is groot. Uiteindelijk kiezen ze na lang overwegen voor eiceldonatie in Spanje. In deze aflevering deelt Jennifer haar verhaal over deze reis en hoe ze daar nu, jaren later, op terugkijkt.    Steun de podcast via https://vriendvandeshow.nl/het-noorden-kwijt Muziek: Kelrose  https://www.instagram.com/het_noorden_kwijt/ https://www.tiktok.com/@hetnoordenkwijt

With breeding season just around the corner, we couldn't think of a better time to sit down with our longtime friend and trusted reproduction vet, Dr. Pat Garrett. In this episode, the guys dive deep into all things breeding, making it an absolute must-listen for anyone in the horse industry. Dr. Pat shares his expert insights on the pros and cons of ICSI, advice for creating effective breeding plans, and what his schedule will look like as the season kicks into gear. He also reflects on how the industry has evolved over the years and shares his perspective on where it's headed. Of course, no episode would be complete without a healthy dose of laughter, and this one doesn't disappoint. From technical tips to hilarious moments, this conversation has it all. Tune in to learn, laugh, and get ready for breeding season 2025!

So, let's talk about myths surrounding male fertility and why it's crucial to understand that fertility issues aren't just a woman's concern… Have you ever heard of the phrases “real men don't have fertility problems”, “age doesn't matter for men”, or “fertility issues are a woman's problem”? These half-truths and misconceptions aren't just wrong—they're harmful. It's a common belief, but it's far from the truth. In fact, 40-50% of all fertility challenges are due to male factors—and yet, myths and misinformation keep many men from understanding their role. That's why in this episode, we're setting the record straight as we debunk myths, discuss how lifestyle impacts sperm health, and outline actionable steps men can take to support their fertility. Whether you're preparing for parenthood, supporting a partner, or just wanting to learn more, this episode will challenge what you think you know and guide you toward taking action. So, tune in now and take the first step towards informed and proactive fertility health. Why you need to check this episode: - Understand why fertility is not a women's issue alone but a shared responsibility between men and women; - Discover how age and lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, and exercise play a crucial role in sperm health; - Recognize the importance of regular medical checkups to identify and address potential health issues that may affect fertility; and - Learn about interventions such as testosterone supplementation and assisted reproductive technologies (in vitro fertilization or IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection or ICSI) that can help address fertility challenges “If you understand that fertility is a two-way street—that it could be a male issue or a female issue, guess what? You get to the problems and the problem-solving a lot quicker.” – Dr. Berry Pierre Notable Quotes: “As we age, not only can our sperm count decrease, but more importantly, we don't have as healthy a sperm as we had when we were 18 or 20. So yeah, your body may still produce sperm…[but] it doesn't mean that the sperm that you're producing is actually good sperm.” – Dr. Berry Pierre “Regular checkups need to be in your armamentarium if you want to make sure you don't have to worry about fertility issues when you're ready to fertilize.” – Dr. Berry Pierre “One thing I always say in medicine—if you come to us early enough, we have some options to treat the issue…So, never fear. You just got to come and see us…The medical field is here for you, [and] your partner will be there for you as well. It's kind of a team effort in working with fertility.” – Dr. Berry Pierre Mentions: Common Myths About Male Fertility Understanding the Pros and Cons of Testosterone Replacement Therapy Sign up at www.listentodrberry.com  to join the mailing list. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, and Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Patreon Family Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources – These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media My Amazon Store – Check out all of the book recommendations you heard in the episode

¡NUEVO EPISODIO! Esta semana vas a conocer el relato de parto de Alba Pizarro, mamá de una niña de 4 meses. Conseguir el embarazo no fue tarea fácil, y en el proceso Alba y su pareja llegaron a un diagnóstico de oligoastenozoospermia por un varicocele. La recomendación de los médicos fue hacer un FIV con ICSI (una técnica en la que se inserta directamente el ADN del esperma dentro del óvulo). En su primer ciclo de estimulación, Alba consiguió dos embriones. La transfe del primero dio negativo, y por suerte en la segunda transferencia se quedó embarazada, y el embarazo salió adelante. Alba me habla de un parto inducido intenso y doloroso. Su historia tiene un montón de matices interesantes, y espero que disfrutes escuchándola tanto como yo. Clica PLAY y empezamos. ************************ ¡Buenas noticias! Por fin me he decidido a grabar mis propios relatos de parto. Lo tendré listo muy pronto - y me hace mucha ilusión compartirlo contigo, porque además vendrá con una invitación especial. Si lo quieres escuchar suscríbete para recibir el acceso, porque no voy a poner mi episodio aquí en la biblioteca, sin en un espacio privado. El enlace para apuntarte y recibir la notificación es https://www.planetaparto.es/isa ¡Pronto estará listo!

Heute ist Verena Metzler ( www.verena-metzler.com) bei mir zu Gast. Wir sprechen über das Kinderwunsch Yoga. Sie ist eine erfahrene Yogalehrerin, die sich auf Techniken spezialisiert hat, die Körper und Geist in Einklang bringen, um den Kinderwunsch zu unterstützen. Sie erklärt, wie bestimmte Asanas helfen können, den Hormonhaushalt zu regulieren und Stress abzubauen, was für Paare mit Kinderwunsch besonders wichtig ist. Hast du Wünsche zum Podcast? Fragen? Vorschläge für Interview-Gäste? Ich freue mich sehr von dir zu lesen: mail@nicoleregli.ch Herzlichen Dank für deine Kontaktaufnahme

Du Liebe, in dieser Folge widmen wir uns einem Thema, das so viele Frauen auf ihrer Kinderwunschreise begleitet: das quälende Gedankenkarussell. Diese immer wiederkehrenden Gedanken, die dich runterziehen, dir den Schlaf rauben und die Leichtigkeit nehmen, können so belastend sein. Aber was, wenn ich dir sage, dass es einen Weg gibt, dieses Karussell zu stoppen – und zwar nachhaltig? In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ Was es mit dem EINEN Tool, mit dem du akute Grübeleien stoppen kannst, auf sich hat ✨ Warum schnelle Lösungen allein nicht reichen, um wirklich Veränderung zu spüren ✨ Wie du dich von Kontrollzwang und dem Druck, „alles richtig zu machen“, lösen kannst ✨ Welche tiefere Bedeutung dein Gedankenkarussell haben könnte und wie du damit arbeiten kannst ✨ Warum echte Leichtigkeit nicht mit Tricks, sondern mit nachhaltiger innerer Arbeit entsteht Du bekommst nicht nur praktische Impulse, sondern auch eine tiefere Perspektive, die dich erkennen lässt, dass dein Weg dich Schritt für Schritt weiterbringt – auch wenn du es gerade nicht immer spürst. Diese Folge ist eine liebevolle Einladung, dein Vertrauen in dich und deinen Weg zu stärken und zu spüren: Du bist nicht allein.

In this heartfelt episode, I sit down with the incredibly brave Lisa Choney, who opens up about her journey through unimaginable challenges and triumphs. After battling an eating disorder herself, Lisa faced another unexpected hurdle — her husband's diagnosis of azoospermia, or male infertility. With their dreams of having a biological child hanging in the balance, they embarked on an emotional path through ICSI, three egg retrievals, a TESA procedure, a TESE surgery, multiple specialists, and four transfers. Their resilience was rewarded with the arrival of their miracle daughter. Lisa's story is not just one of perseverance through infertility but also a reflection on body image, self-worth, and the values she'll instill in her daughter. This episode is a testament to hope, love, and the power of never giving up.

#98 IVF/ICSI: Die Behandlung beginnt

This study compared efficacy of two r-FSH medications: follitropin alpha (Gonal-F) vs. follitropin beta (Puregon) on the number of live births cumulatively (CLBR). This was looking at patients 21-45yrs doing fresh embryo transfer after their first IVF or ICSI cycle.ResourcesCao JX, Song JY. Follitropin Alpha versus Follitropin Beta in IVF/ICSI Cycle: A Retrospective Cohort Study. Drug Des Devel Ther. 2024;18:4359-4369. Published 2024 Sep 26. doi:10.2147/DDDT.S479700Van den Haute L, Drakopoulos P, Verheyen G, De Vos M, Tournaye H, Blockeel C. Follitropin alpha versus beta in a first GnRH antagonist ICSI cycle: a retrospective cohort study. Reprod Biomed Online. 2021;43(4):655-662. doi:10.1016/j.rbmo.2021.06.014

Du Liebe, in dieser Folge tauchen wir gemeinsam mit Claudia und Chris von Eizellspende.de in die facettenreiche Welt der Kinderwunschreise ein. Claudia und Chris betreiben die Plattform Eizellspende.de, die nicht nur für Frauen gedacht ist, die sich mit einer Eizellspende auseinandersetzen. Sie bietet vielmehr eine umfassende Unterstützung für alle, die sich auf der Reise zum Wunschkind befinden. In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ Die Hintergründe zur Entstehung und Mission von Eizellspende.de ✨ Warum die Plattform nicht nur für Frauen mit dem Wunsch nach einer Eizellspende relevant ist ✨ Wie Claudia und Chris den Betrieb der Plattform erleben – mit all ihren Höhen und Herausforderungen ✨ Welche Kriterien eine gute Kinderwunschklinik auszeichnen und warum diese auf der Webseite empfohlen werden ✨ Warum bald auch deutsche Kliniken auf Eizellspende.de zu finden sind ✨ Antworten auf häufige Fragen aus der Community rund um das Thema Eizellspende

I may not be your fertility doctor, but it doesn't matter where you live. If you're thinking about or actively preparing for In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) then I'm so glad to have you here. My intention is to help you get ready for IVF — regardless of who your doctor is or where you live. These are the tips you can apply to your situation to take an active role in your fertility care. Step 1: Know your diagnosis Step 2: Assemble your team Step 3: Get organized & keep track of your files Step 4: Understand medication side effects Step 5: Understand your semen collection options Step 6: Decide if you are going to do IVF with or without ICSI or PICSI Step 7: Decide if you will genetically test the embryos Step 8: Understand if you will be at risk for OHSS Step 9: Prepare for the transfer Read all of the show notes on Dr. Aimee's website Do you have questions about IVF? Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, September 16, 2024 at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips! Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org.

Fertility and Sterility On Air brings you the best of ESHRE 2024! In Part 2, hosts Micah Hill, Paul Pirtea, and Kate Devine bring you: progesterone levels in a randomized controlled trial with long-acting FSH with Annalisa Racca (01:19), live birth of day 7 embryo transfers with Marcela Colonge and Nicolas Garrido (10:57), an ICSI vs conventional IVF randomized controlled trial with Sine Berntsen and Nina la Cour Freiesleben (17:17), limitations of reporting mosaicism in PGT-A with Dhruti Barbariya and Antonio Capalbo (27:15), interview with ASRM president Paula Amato and president-elect Elizabeth Ginsburg (32:41), and ovarian aging with Kutluk Oktay (45:17).   View Fertility and Sterility at https://www.fertstert.org/  

Presented in partnership with Fertility and Sterility onsite at the 2024 ANZSREI meeting in Sydney, Australia.  The ANZSREI 2024 debate discussed whether patients with unexplained infertility should go straight to IVF. Experts on both sides weighed the effectiveness, cost, and psychological impact of IVF versus alternatives like IUI. The pro side emphasized IVF's high success rates and diagnostic value, while the con side argued for less invasive, cost-effective options. The debate highlighted the need for individualized care, with no clear consensus reached among the audience. View Fertility and Sterility at https://www.fertstert.org/ TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Fertility and Sterility On Air, the podcast where you can stay current on the latest global research in the field of reproductive medicine. This podcast brings you an overview of this month's journal, in-depth discussion with authors, and other special features. F&S On Air is brought to you by Fertility and Sterility family of journals in conjunction with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and is hosted by Dr. Kurt Barnhart, Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Eve Feinberg, Editorial Editor, Dr. Micah Hill, Media Editor, and Dr. Pietro Bordoletto, Interactive Associate-in-Chief. I'd just like to say welcome to our third and final day of the ANZSREI conference. We've got our now traditional F&S podcast where we've got an expert panel, we've got our international speaker, Pietro, and we've got a wonderful debate ahead of us. This is all being recorded. You're welcome, and please think of questions to ask the panel at the end, because it's quite an interactive session, and we're going to get some of the best advice on some of the really controversial areas, like unexplained infertility. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the second annual Fertility and Sterility Journal Club Global, coming to you live from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility meeting. I think I speak on behalf of everyone at F&S that we are so delighted to be here. Over the last two years, we've really made a concerted effort to take the podcast on the road, and this, I think, is a nice continuation of that. For the folks who are tuning in from home and listening to this podcast after the fact, the Australia and New Zealand Society for Reproductive Endocrinology is a group of over 100 certified reproductive endocrinologists across Australia and New Zealand, and this is their annual meeting live in Sydney, Australia. Today's debate is a topic that I think has vexed a lot of individuals, a lot of patients, a lot of professional groups. There's a fair amount of disagreement, and today we're going to try to unpack a little bit of unexplained infertility, and the question really is, should we be going straight to IVF? As always, we try to anchor to literature, and there are two wonderful documents in fertility and sterility that we'll be using as our guide for discussion today. The first one is a wonderful series that was published just a few months ago in the May issue, 2024, that is a views and reviews section, which means there's a series of three to five articles that kind of dig into this topic in depth. And the second article is our professional society guideline, the ASRM Committee Opinion, entitled Evidence-Based Treatments for Couples with Unexplained Infertility, a guideline. The format for today's discussion is debate style. We have a group of six experts, and I've asked them to randomly assign themselves to a pro and a con side. So I'll make the caveat here that the things that they may be saying, positions they may be trying to influence us on, are not necessarily things that they believe in their academic or clinical life, but for the purposes of a rich debate, they're going to have to be pretty deliberate in convincing us otherwise. I want to introduce my panel for today. We have on my immediate right, Dr. Raewyn Tierney. She's my co-moderator for tonight, and she's a practicing board-certified fertility specialist at IVF Australia. And on my immediate left, we have the con side. Going from left to right, Dr. Michelle Quick, practicing board-certified fertility specialist at IVF Australia. Dr. Robert LaHood, board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and clinical director of IVF Australia here in Sydney. And Dr. Clara Bothroyd, medical director at Care Fertility and the current president of the Asia Pacific Initiative in Reproduction. Welcome. On the pro side, going from right to left, I have Dr. Aurelia Liu. She is a practicing board-certified fertility specialist, medical director of Women's Health Melbourne, and clinical director at Life Fertility in Melbourne. Dr. Marcin Stankiewicz, a practicing board-certified fertility specialist and medical director at Family Fertility Centre in Adelaide. And finally, but certainly not least, the one who came with a tie this morning, Dr. Roger Hart, who is a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Western Australia and the national medical director of City Fertility. Welcome, pro side. Thank you.  I feel naked without it. APPLAUSE I've asked both sides to prepare opening arguments. Think of this like a legal case. We want to hear from the defence, we want to hear from the plaintiffs, and I'm going to start with our pro side. I'd like to give them a few minutes to each kind of introduce their salient points for why we should be starting with IVF for patients with unexplained infertility. Thanks, Pietro. To provide a diagnosis of unexplained infertility, it's really a reflection of the degree investigation we've undertaken. I believe we all understand that unexplained infertility is diagnosed in the presence of adequate intercourse, normal semen parameters, an absence ovulatory disorder, patent fallopian tubes, and a normal detailed pelvic ultrasound examination. Now, the opposing team will try to convince you that I have not investigated the couple adequately. Personally, I'm affronted by that suggestion. But what possible causes of infertility have I not investigated? We cannot assess easily sperm fertilising capability, we cannot assess oocyte quality, oocyte fertilisation potential, embryonic development, euploidy rate, and implantation potential. Surely these causes of unexplained fertility will only become evident during an IVF cycle. As IVF is often diagnostic, it's also a therapeutic intervention. Now, I hear you cry, what about endometriosis? And I agree, what about endometriosis? Remember, we're discussing unexplained infertility here. Yes, there is very good evidence that laparoscopic treatment for symptomatic patients with endometriosis improves pelvic pain, but there is scant evidence that a diagnostic laparoscopy and treating any minor disease in the absence of pain symptoms will improve the chance of natural conception, or to that matter, improve the ultimate success of IVF. Indeed, in the absence of endometriomas, there is no negative impact on the serum AMH level in women with endometriosis who have not undergone surgery. Furthermore, there is no influence on the number of oocytes collected in an IVF cycle, the rate of embryonic aneuploidy, and the live birth rate after embryo transfer. So why put the woman through a painful, possibly expensive operation with its attendant risks as you're actually delaying her going straight to IVF? What do esteemed societies say about a diagnostic laparoscopy in the setting of unexplained infertility? The ESHRE guidelines state routine diagnostic laparoscopy is not recommended for the diagnosis of unexplained infertility. Indeed, our own ANZSREI consensus statement says that for a woman with a minimal and mild endometriosis, that the number of women needed to treat for one additional ongoing pregnancy is between 3 and 100 women with endometriosis. Is that reasonable to put an asymptomatic woman through a laparoscopy for that limited potential benefit? Now, regarding the guidelines for unexplained infertility, I agree the ASRM guidelines do not support IVF as a first-line therapy for unexplained infertility for women under 37 years of age. What they should say, and they don't, is that it is assumed that she is trying for her last child. There's no doubt if this is her last child, if it isn't her last child, sorry, she will be returning, seeking treatment, now over 37 years of age, where the guidelines do state there is good evidence that going straight to IVF may be associated with higher pregnancy rates, a shorter time to pregnancy, as opposed to other strategies. They then state it's important to note that many of these included studies were conducted in an area of low IVF success rates than those currently observed, which may alter this approach, suggesting they do not even endorse their own recommendations. The UK NICE guidelines, what do they say for unexplained infertility? Go straight to IVF. So while you're listening to my esteemed colleagues on my left speaking against the motion, I'd like to be thinking about other important factors that my colleagues on my right will discuss in more detail. Consider the superior efficacy of IVF versus IUI, the excellent safety profile of IVF and its cost-effectiveness. Further, other factors favouring a direct approach to IVF in the setting of unexplained infertility are what is the woman's desired family? We should not be focusing on her first child, we should be focusing on giving her the family that she desires and how we can minimise her inconvenience during treatment, as this has social, career and financial consequences for those impediments for her while we attempt to help her achieve her desired family. Thank you. APPLAUSE I think the young crowd would say that that was shots fired. LAUGHTER Con side? We're going to save the rebuttal for the time you've allocated to that, but first I want to put the case about unexplained infertility. Unexplained infertility in 2024 is very different to what it was 10 and 20 years ago when many of the randomised controlled trials that investigated unexplained infertility were performed. The armamentarium of investigative procedures and options that we have has changed, as indeed has our understanding of the mechanisms of infertility. So much so that that old definition of normal semen analysis, normal pelvis and ovulatory, which I think was in Roy Homburg's day, is now no longer fit for purpose as a definition of unexplained infertility. And I commend to you ICMART's very long definition of unexplained infertility, which really relies on a whole lot of things, which I'm going to now take you through what we need to do. It is said, or was said, that 30% of infertility was unexplained. I think it's way, way less than that if we actually look at our patients, both of them, carefully with history and examination and directed tests, and you will probably reduce that to about 3%. Let me take you through female age first. Now, in the old trials, some of the women recruited were as old as 42. That is not unexplained infertility. We know about oocyte aneuploidy and female ageing. 41, it's not unexplained. 40, it's not unexplained. 39, it's not unexplained. And I would put it to you that the cut-off where you start to see oocyte aneuploidy significantly constraining fertility is probably 35. So unexplained infertility has to, by definition, be a woman who is less than 35. I put that to you. Now, let's look at the male. Now, what do we know about the male, the effect of male age on fertility? We know that if the woman is over 35, and this is beautiful work that's really done many years ago in Europe, that if the woman is over 35 and the male is five years older than her, her chance of natural conception is reduced by a further 30%. So I put it to you that, therefore, the male age is relevant. And if she's 35 and has a partner who's 35 years older than her or more, it's not unexplained infertility. It's related to couple age. Now, we're going to... So that's age. Now, my colleagues are going to take you through a number of treatment interventions other than IVF, which we can do with good effect if we actually make the diagnosis and don't put them into the category of unexplained infertility. You will remember from the old trials that mild or moderate or mild or minimal endometriosis was often included, as was mild male factor or seminal fluid abnormalities. These were really multifactorial infertility, and I think that's the take-home message, that much of what we call unexplained is multifactorial. You have two minor components that act to reduce natural fecundability. So I now just want to take you through some of the diagnoses that contribute to infertility that we may not, in our routine laparoscopy and workup, we may not pick up and have previously been called unexplained infertility. For instance, we know that adenomyosis is probably one of the mechanisms by which endometriosis contributes to infertility. Chronic endometritis is now emerging as an operative factor in infertility, and that will not be diagnosed easily. Mild or minimal endometriosis, my colleagues will cover. The mid-cycle scan will lead you to the thin endometrium, which may be due to unexpected adhesive disease, but also a thin endometrium, which we know has a very adverse prognostic factor, may be due to long-term progestin contraception. We are starting to see this emerge. Secondary infertility after a caesarean section may be due to an isthma seal, and we won't recognise that unless we do mid-cycle scans. That's the female. Let's look at the male. We know now that seminal fluid analysis is not a good predictor of male fertility, and there is now evidence from Ranjith Ramasamy's work that we are missing clinical varicoceles because we failed to examine the male partner. My colleagues will talk more about that. We may miss DNA fragmentation, which again may contribute via the basic seminal fluid analysis. Now, most of these diagnoses can be made or sorted out or excluded within one or two months of your detailed assessment of both partners by history and examination. So it's not straight to IVF, ladies and gentlemen. It's just a little digression, a little lay-by, where you actually assess the patient thoroughly. She did not need a tie for that rebuttal. LAUGHTER Prasad. Thank you. Well, following from what Professor Hart has said, I'm going to show that IVF should be a go-to option because of its effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and safety. Now, let me first talk about the effectiveness, and as this is an interaction session, I would like to ask the audience, please, by show of hands, to show me how many of you would accept a medical treatment or buy a new incubator if it had a 94% chance of failure? Well, let the moderator please note that no hands have been raised. Thank you very much. Yet, the chance of live birth in Australian population following IUI is 6%, where, after IVF, the live birth is 40%. Almost seven times more. Now, why would we subject our patients to something we ourselves would not choose? Similarly, findings were reported from international studies that the hazard ratio of 1.25 favouring immediate IVF, and I will talk later about why it is important from a safety perspective. Cost-effectiveness. And I quote ESHRE guidelines. The costs, treatment options have not been subject to robust evaluations. Now, again, I would like to ask the audience, this time it's an easy question, how many of you would accept as standard an ongoing pregnancy rate of at least 38% for an average IVF cycle? Yeah, hands up. All right, I've got three-quarters of the room. OK. Well, I could really rest my case now, as we have good evidence that if a clinic has got an ongoing pregnancy rate of 38% or higher with IVF with single embryo transfer, then it is more effective, more cost-effective, and should be a treatment of choice. And that evidence comes from the authors that are sitting in this room. Again, what would the patients do? If the patients are paying for the treatment, would they do IUI? Most of them would actually go straight to IVF. And we also have very nice guidelines which advise against IUI based on cost-effectiveness. Another factor to mention briefly is the multiple births, which cost five to 20 times more than singleton. The neonatal cost of a twin birth costs about five times more than singletons, and pregnancy with delivery of triplets or more costs nearly 20 times. Now, the costs that I'm going to quote are in American dollars and from some time ago, from Fertility and Sterility. However, the total adjusted all healthcare costs for a single-dom delivery is about US$21,000, US$105,000 for twins, and US$400,000 for triplets and more. Then the very, very important is the psychological cost of the high risk of failure with IUI. Now, it is well established that infertility has a psychological impact on our patients. Studies have shown that prolonged time to conception extends stress, anxiety, and depression, and sexual functioning is significantly negatively impacted. Literature shows that 56% of women and 32% of men undergoing fertility treatment report significant symptoms of depression, and 76% of women and 61% of men report significant symptoms of anxiety. Shockingly, it is reported that 9.4% of women reported having suicidal thoughts or attempts. The longer the treatment takes, the more our patients display symptoms of distress, depression, and anxiety. Safety. Again, ESHRE guideline says the safety of treatment options have not been subjected to robust evaluation. But let me talk you through it. In our Australian expert hands, IVF is safe, with the risk of complications of ectopic being about 1 in 1,500 and other risks 1 in 3,000. However, let's think for a moment on impact of multiple births. A multiple pregnancy has significant psychological, physical, social, and financial consequences, which I can go further into details if required. I just want to mention that the stillbirth rate increases from under 1% for singleton pregnancies to 4.5% for twins and 8.3% for higher-order multiples, and that multiple pregnancies have potential long-term adverse health outcomes for the offspring, such as the increased risk of health issues through their life, increased learning difficulties, language delay, and attention and behavior problems. The lifelong disability is over 25% for babies weighing less than 1 kilogram at delivery. And please note that the quoted multiple pregnancy rates with IUI can reach up to 33%, although in expert hands it's usually around 15%, which is significantly higher than single embryo transfer. In conclusion, from the mother and child safety perspective, for the reason of medical efficacy and cost effectiveness, we have reasons to believe you should go straight to IVF. We're going to be doing these debates more often from Australia. This is a great panel. One side, please. Unexplained infertility. My colleagues were comparing IUI ovulation induction with IVF, but there are other ways of achieving pregnancies with unexplained fertility. I'm going to take the patient's perspective a little bit here. It's all about shared decision-making, so the patient needs to be involved in the decision-making. And it's quite clear from all the data that many patients with unexplained infertility will fall pregnant naturally by themselves even if you do nothing. So sometimes there's definitely a place in doing nothing, and the patient needs to be aware of that. So it's all about informed consent. How do we inform the patient? So we've got to make a proper diagnosis, as my colleague Dr. Boothright has already mentioned, and just to jump into IVF because it's cost-effective is not doing our patients a justice. The prognosis is really, really important, and even after 20 years of doing this, it's all about the duration of infertility, the age of the patient, and discussing that prognosis with the patient. We all know that patients who have been trying for longer and who are older do have a worse prognosis, and maybe they do need to look at treatment quicker, but there are many patients that we see that have a good prognosis, and just explaining that to them is all they need to achieve a pregnancy naturally. And then we're going to talk about other options. It's wrong not to offer those to patients, and my colleague Dr. Quick will talk about that in a moment. Look, we've all had patients that have been scarred by IVF who've spent a lot of money on IVF, did not fall pregnant, and I think the fact that they weren't informed properly, that the diagnosis wasn't made properly, is very frustrating to them. So to just jump into IVF again is not doing the patients a justice. And look, there are negatives to IVF. There's not just the cost to the patient, the cost to society. As taxpayers, we all pay for IVF. It's funded here, or sponsored to some degree, and it's also the family and everyone else that's involved in paying for this. So this is not a treatment that is without cost. There are some harms. We know that ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome still exists, even though it's much less than it used to be. There's a risk of infection and bleeding from the procedures. And we can look at the baby. The data still suggests that babies born from IVF are smaller and they're born earlier, and monozygotic twinning is more common with IVF, so these are high-risk pregnancies, and all this may have an impact on the long-term health of the babies somewhere down the track at the moment. That is important to still look out for. But I come back to the emotional toll. Our colleagues were saying that finishing infertility quicker helps to kind of reduce the emotional toll, but the procedure itself does have its own toll if it doesn't work, and so we've got to prepare patients, have them informed. But at the end of the day, it's all about patient choice. How can a patient make a choice if we don't make a proper diagnosis, give them a prognosis and offer them some other choices that exist? And running the anchor leg of the race for the pro side. IVF in couples with unexplained infertility is the best tool we have in our reproductive medicine toolkit for multiple reasons. Professor Hart has clarified the definition of unexplained infertility. As a reflection of the degree of investigation we've undertaken. He's explained that IVF is often importantly diagnostic as well as therapeutic, both demonstrating and overcoming barriers to natural conception. Dr Stankiewicz has convinced us that IVF is efficient, safe and cost-effective. My goal is to show you that IVF is the correct therapy to meet the immediate and big picture family planning goals for our patients with unexplained infertility. More than 80% of couples with defined unexplained infertility who attempt IVF treatment will have a baby. In Australia, ANZSREI data shows us that the average age of the female patients who present with primary unexplained infertility is over 35 years. And in fact the average is 38 years. We're all aware that the average age of first maternity in Australia has progressively become later over the past two decades. Currently it stands in the mothers and babies report at 32 years. If the average age of first maternity is 32 years, this means that at least 50% of women attempting their first pregnancy are over 32 years. Research I conducted in Melbourne University with my student Eugenie Pryor asking university students of their family planning intentions and aspirations demonstrated that most people, male and female, want to be parents and most want to have more than one child. However, in Australia, our most recent survey shows that births are at an all-time low, below replacement rate and falling, with an ever greater proportion of our population being unable to have the number of children they aspire to and an ever growing proportion seeking assisted reproductive care. Fertility declines with age. Factors include egg quality concerns, sperm quality concerns and the accumulation of pathologies over time. Adenomyosis, fibroids, endometriosis are concerns that no person is born with. They exist on a spectrum and progress over time and may be contributing factors for unexplained infertility. Our patients, when we meet them, are the best IVF candidates that they will ever be. They are the youngest they will ever be and they have the best ovarian reserve they will ever have. They will generate more euploid embryos now than they will in years to come. The sooner we get our patients pregnant, the sooner they will give birth. It takes nine months to have a baby, 12 months potentially to breastfeed and wean and of course most patients will need time to care for a young infant and recover prior to attempting another pregnancy. IVF and embryo banking may represent not only their best chance of conception with reduced time to pregnancy but also an opportunity for embryo banking to improve their cumulative live birth rate potential over time. By the time our 38-year-old patient returns to try to conceive for a second child, she will undoubtedly be aged over 40. Her chance of live birth per cycle initiated at IVF at this stage has reduced phenomenally. The ANZSREI dataset from our most recent report quotes that statistic to be 5%. Her chance of conception with an embryo frozen at 38 years, conversely, is one in three to one in four. There is no room for doubt that IVF gives couples with unexplained infertility not only the most effective treatment we have to help them have a baby, but their best opportunity to have a family. Last but certainly not least, Dr. Quick, to round out the con sides arguments before we open up for rebuttal. And I'll make a small plea that if you have questions that you'd like to pose directly to the panel, prepare them and we'll make sure we get to them from the audience shortly. Thank you. So, whilst we have heard that we may be bad doctors because we're delaying our patients' time to pregnancy, I would perhaps put it to you that unexplained infertility is a diagnosis which is made based on exclusion. So perhaps you are the bad doctors because you haven't looked hard enough for the cause of the unexplained infertility. So, in terms of the tests that we all would do, I think, we would all ensure that the woman has an ovarian reserve. We would all ensure that she has no structural anomaly inside the uterus. We would all ensure that her tubes are patent. We would all ensure that she has regular cycles. We would ensure that he has a normal semen analysis. I think these are tests that we would all do when trying to evaluate a couple for fertility who are struggling to conceive. And therefore, the chance of them getting pregnant naturally, it's never going to be zero. And one option therefore, instead of running straight to IVF, would be to say, OK, continue timed intercourse because the chance of you conceiving naturally is not actually zero and this would be the most natural way to conceive, the cheapest way to conceive, the least interventional way to conceive. And whether that be with cycle tracking to ensure appropriate timed intercourse, whether that be with cycle tracking to ensure adequate luteal phase support. When you clear the fallopian tubes, we know that there are studies showing an improvement in natural conception. Lipidol or oil-based tubal flushing techniques may also help couples to conceive naturally. And then you don't have this multiple pregnancy rate that IVF has. You don't have the cost that you incur with IVF, not just for the couple but to Australian society because IVF is subsidised in this country. You don't have the risks that the woman goes through to undergo IVF treatment. You don't have the risks that the baby takes on being conceived via IVF. And so conceiving naturally, because it's not going to be zero, is definitely an option for these couples. In terms of further tests or further investigations that you could do, some people would argue, yes, we haven't looked hard enough for the reason for infertility, therefore we know that ultrasound is notoriously bad at picking up superficial endometriosis. We know that ultrasound cannot pick up subtle changes in the endometrium, as Dr Boothroyd referred to chronic endometritis, for example. So these patients perhaps should undergo a hysteroscopy to see if there is an endometrial issue. Perhaps these patients should undergo a laparoscopy to see if there is superficial endometriosis. And there are meta-analyses showing that resecting or treating superficial endometriosis may actually help these couples conceive naturally down the track and then therefore they avoid having more interventional treatment in order to conceive. There is also intrauterine insemination with or without ovarian stimulation, which may improve their chances of conceiving naturally. And that again would be less invasive, less intervention and cheaper for the patient. And we know that therefore there are a lot of other treatment options available to help these couples to conceive. And if it's less invasive, it's more natural, it's cheaper, that ends up being better for the patient. Psychologically as well, which the other side have brought up, even with Dr Stankiewicz's 38% ongoing pregnancy rate, that also means that 62% of his patients are not going to be pregnant. The psychological impact of that cannot be underestimated because for a lot of patients, IVF is your last resort. And when you don't get pregnant with IVF, that creates an issue too for them. Embryo banking, which was also brought up, what happens when you create surplus embryos and what's the psychological impact of having to deal with embryos that you are then not going to use in the future? So therefore for those reasons we feel that IVF is not your first line treatment for couples who are diagnosed with unexplained infertility. There are many other ways to help these couples to conceive. We just have a multitude of things to unpack. And I want to start off by opening up an opportunity for rebuttal. I saw both sides of the panel here taking diligent notes. I think all of us have a full page worth of things that kind of stood out to us. Since the pro side had an opportunity to begin, I'm actually going to start with the con side and allow the con side to answer specific points made by the pro side and provide just a little bit more detail and clarity for why they think IVF is not the way forward. My learned first speaker, wearing his tie of course, indicated that it was all about laparoscopy and IUI, and it's way more than that. I just want to highlight to you the paper by Dressler in 2017 in the New England Journal of Medicine, a randomised controlled trial of what would be unexplained infertility according to the definition I put out, the less than 35 ovulatory normal semen analysis. And the intervention was an HSG with either oil-based contrast or water-based contrast. And over the six months, there was clear separation, and this is an effective treatment for unexplained infertility or mild or minimal endometriosis, however it might work. And there's probably separation out to three years. So as a single intervention, as an alternative to IVF, the use of oil-based contrast is an option. So it's not just about laparoscopy and IUI. I guess the other thing the second speaker did allude to, fairly abysmal success rates with IUI being 6%. That is a problem, and I would like to allude to a very good pragmatic trial conducted by Cindy Farquhar and Emily Lu and their co-workers in New Zealand that really swung the meta-analysis for the use of clomiphene and IUI to clinical efficacy. And they reported a 33% chance of live birth in their IUI and clomiphene arm. I'm going across to Auckland to see what the magic is in that city. What are they doing? The third speaker did allude to the problem of declining fertility, a global problem, and Australia is not alone. We have solved the problem to date, which we've had for 40 years, with immigration. But Georgina Chambers' work shows beautifully that IVF is not the answer to the falling fertility rates. It is a way more complex social problem and is probably outside the scope of today's discussion. So those are my three rebuttals to our wonderful team. Thank you very much. So... You can't bury them. We'll give them an opportunity. Thank you for the opportunity. So I'd like to address some of the points that my learned debaters on the opposition raised. The first speaker really suggested quite a few things that we probably omitted, like endometritis, failing to examine the male. I think things like that... I think, at a good history, that is essential what we do as part of our investigation. We're looking for a history of cesarean section, complications subsequent to that. We're doing a detailed scan, and that will exclude the fact that she's got a poor endometrium development, she's got a cesarean scar niche. A good history of a male will allude to the fact that he has some metabolic disorder, degree of hypogonadism. So we're not delaying anything by these appropriate investigations. Adenomyosis will be raised. I talked about a detailed gynaecological examination. So I honestly think that a very... As my opening line was, a detailed gynaecological scan, obviously with a very good history taken, is essential. We're not delaying her opportunity to go straight to IVF if we've addressed all these factors. The second speaker talked about shared decision-making, and we'd all completely agree with that. But we have to be honest and open about the success, which my second speaker talked about, the success of the treatment we're offering. And one thing we should sort of dwell on is it's all... It's a fundamental description of the success of treatment is probably all about prognostic models, and that who not model, that's the original model about the success of conception, is really... Everything flows on from that, which basically talks about a good prognosis patient. 30% chance of live birth after a year. That's what they talk about, a good prognosis patient. Perhaps the rest of the world is different to your average Australian patient, but if we talked about that being a good prognosis, you've got a one in three chance of being pregnant by a year. I think most of our patients would throttle us. So that is what all the models are sort of based on, that being a good prognosis patient. So I completely agree with the second speaker that we do have a shared decision. We have to be honest with our patients about the success. We have to be honest about giving them the prognosis of any treatment that we offer. But really, as my third speaker was talking about, it's about giving the patient the opportunity to have a family, minimal career disruption, minimal life disruption. We have to be honest and talk about the whole picture. They're focused on the first child because really they can't think beyond that. We're talking about giving them the family that they need. The third speaker spoke very eloquently about the risks associated with the treatment we offer. I believe we offer a very safe service with our IVF, particularly in Australia, with our 2% twin pregnancy rate. We talk about the higher risk of these pregnancies, but they perhaps don't relate to the treatment we're offering. Perhaps, unfortunately, is the patient, if she's got polycystic ovary syndrome, if she's more likely to have diabetes, premature delivery, preeclampsia. So I think often the risks associated with IVF and potentially the risks associated to the child born from IVF perhaps don't relate to the treatment of IVF per se. It may well be the woman and perhaps her partner, their underlying medical condition, which lead those risks. So I strongly would encourage you to believe that you take a very good history from your patient, you do a thorough investigation, as I've alluded to, looking for any signs of ovulatory disorder, any gynaecological disorder by a detailed scan, checking tubal patency and a detailed history and the similarities from the man, and then you'll find you're probably going straight to IVF. APPLAUSE I'd like to talk a bit about the embryo banking and having been in this field for a long time, as a word of caution, we're setting a lot of expectations. I remember going to an ASRM meeting probably 10 years ago where they had this headline, all your embryos in the freezer, your whole family in the freezer, basically expecting that if you get four or five embryos frozen that you'll end up with a family at the end. We all know that for the patient, they're not a percentage, it's either zero or 100%. And if all the embryos don't work, they don't have a family at the end, you know, it didn't work for them and their expectations haven't been met. And the way we talk about the percentages and that we can solve the patient's problems, that we can make families, it doesn't always happen. So the expectations our position is setting here, we're not always able to meet and so we're going to end up with very unhappy patients. So this is just a warning to everyone that we need to tell people that this doesn't always work and sometimes they'll end up with no success at all. And from that point of view, I think the way it's presented is way too simplistic and we've got to go back to looking at the other options and not promising things we can't always deliver. So just taking into account all our esteemed interlocutors have said, we don't necessarily disagree with the amount of investigations that they described because nowhere in our argument we said that as soon as the patient registers with the receptionist, they will direct it to an IVF lab. I think to imply so, we'd be very rich indeed. Maybe there are some clinics that are so efficient. I don't know how it works overseas, but certainly not in Australia. The other point that was made about the cost of IVF and our, again, esteemed interlocutors are very well aware from the studies done here in Australia that actually every baby that we have to conceive through IVF and create and lives is actually more than 10 to 100 times return on investment because we are creating future taxpayers. We are creating people that will repay the IVF treatment costs over and over and over again. So I'll put to you, Rob, that if you are saying that we can't do IVF because it costs money, you are robbing future treasurers of a huge amount of dollars. I hope the American audience is listening. In America, we call embryos unborn children in freezers in certain parts and here they're unborn taxpayers. Con side, final opportunity for rebuttal before some audience questions and one more word from the pro side. Well, actually, Dr Stankiewicz was very happy to hear that you're not going to send your patients straight to the IVF lab because we've managed to convince you that that's not the right thing to do. I clearly have forgotten how to debate because I did all my rebuttals at the end of my presentation but essentially I'll recap because when we're talking about IVF, as we're saying, the chance of pregnancy is not going to be 100% and so there is a psychological impact to IVF not working. There is a psychological impact to banking embryos and creating surplus embryos that eventually may not be used and they were my main rebuttal points in terms of why IVF was not the first-line treatment. Thank you. So we've heard from the opposition some very valid points of how our patients can be psychologically impacted when fertility treatment is unsuccessful. I will again remind you that IVF is the most successful fertility treatment we have in our treatment armoury. We are most likely to help our patients have a baby with IVF. The cumulative pregnancy rates for IVF have started back in the late 70s and early 80s in single-digit percentages. We now, with a best prognosis candidate, have at least a one-in-two chance of that patient having a baby per embryo transfer and in our patients with unexplained infertility, the vast majority of our patients will have success. We also heard from the negative team about the significant chance of pregnancy in patients with expectant management. You're right, there's not a 0% chance of natural conception in patients who have unexplained infertility, but there is a not very good chance. We know from data that we've had for a really long time, going back as far as the Hutterite data, to today's non-contradictory models, which tell us that a couple's chance of conception per month in best prognosis candidates is one in five. If they've been trying for six months, it's one in ten. If they've been trying for 12 months, it's only 5%, and if they've been trying for 24 months, it's less than 1%. So it may not be zero, but it isn't very good. In terms of our team reminding us of the extended ICMART definition of unexplained infertility, we don't argue. When we say someone has unexplained infertility, we make the assumption that they have been comprehensively diagnosed by a robust reproductive endocrinologist, as everyone in this room is. And I would say one closing rebuttal. IUI success rates have been the same for the last 50 years, whereas IVF success rates continue to improve. Why would you offer your patient a treatment from 50 years ago when you can offer them one from today? Thank you. APPLAUSE I'm going to take a personal privilege and ask the first question, in hoping that the microphone makes its way to the second question in the audience. My colleagues on the pro side have said IVF, IVF, IVF. Can you be a little bit more specific about what kind of IVF? Do you mean IVF with ICSI? Do you mean IVF, ICSI, and PGT? Be a little bit more deliberate for us and tell us exactly how the patient with unexplained infertility should receive IVF. As I said in my statement, I think it's a diagnostic evaluation. I think there is an argument to consider ICSI, but I think ICSI does have some negative consequences for children born. I think perhaps going straight to ICSI is too much. I think going straight to PGTA perhaps is too much, unless there is something in their history which should indicate that. But we're talking about unexplained infertility. So I believe a standard IVF cycle, looking at the opportunity to assess embryonic development, is the way to go. I do not think you should be going straight to ICSI. I think the principle of first do no harm is probably a safe approach. I don't know whether my colleagues have some other comments, but I think that would be the first approach rather than going all guns blazing. I can understand, though, in different settings in the world, there may have... We're very fortunate in Australia, we're very well supported from the government support for IVF, but I think the imperatives in different countries may be different. But I think that approach would be the right one first. We'll start with a question from the audience. And if you could introduce yourself and have the question allowed for our members in the audience who are not here. It's Louise Hull here from Adelaide. The question I would like to put to both the pro and con team is that Geeta Mishra from the University of Queensland showed that if you had diagnosed endometriosis before IVF, you were more likely to have a pregnancy and much less likely to have high-order IVF cycles. Given that we now have really good non-invasive diagnostics, we're actually... A lot of the time we can pick up superficial or stage 2 endometriosis if you get the right scan. We're going to do IVF better if we know about it. Can you comment on that impacting even the diagnosis of unexplained infertility? Thanks. I'd love to take that. Can I go first, Roger? LAUGHTER Please do. Look, I'd love to take that question. It's a really good question. And, of course, this is not unexplained infertility, so this is outside the scope here. And I think, really, what we're seeing now, in contrast to where we were at the time of the Markku study, which was all... And the Tulandy study on endometrioma excision, we now see that that is actually damaging to fertility, particularly where there is ovarian endometriosis, and that we compromise their ovarian reserve by doing this surgery before we preserve their fertility, be it oocyte cryopreservation or embryo cryopreservation. So I think it's a bit outside the scope of this talk, but I think the swing of the data now is that we should be doing fertility preservation before we do surgery for deeply infiltrated ovarian endometriosis. And that would fit with Gita's findings. A brief response. Thanks very much, Louise. Yeah, we're talking about unexplained infertility here, and my opening line was we need a history, but a detailed gynaecological ultrasound. I think it's important it's a really good ultrasound to exclude that, because the evidence around very minor endometriosis is not there. I agree with significant endometriosis, but that's not the subject of this discussion. But I do believe with very minimal endometriosis there is really no evidence for that. Janelle MacDonald from Sydney. I'm going to play devil's advocate here. So everyone is probably aware of the recent government inquiry about obstetric violence. I'm a little concerned that if we are perceived to be encouraging women to IVF first, are we guilty as a profession of performing fertility violence? That's just digressing a little bit, just thinking about how the consumers may perceive this. I think our patients want to have a baby, and that's why they come to see us, and that's what we help them to do through IVF. I'm not sure the microphone's working. And just introduce yourself. I'm from Sydney, Australia. Can I disagree with you, Roger, about that question about minimal and mild endometriosis? I'm 68, so I'm old enough to have read a whole lot of papers in the past that are probably seen as relics. But Mark Khoo published an unusual study, because it was actually an RCT. Well, sorry, not an RCT. It was a study whereby... Well, it was an RCT, and it was randomised really well. It was done in Canada, and there were about 350 subjects, and they were identified to have stage 1 or stage 2 endometriosis at laparoscopy. And the interesting thing is it was seen as an intervention which didn't greatly increase the chance of conception, but it doubled the monthly chance of conception. So there was clearly a difference between those patients who didn't have endometriosis and those that had stage 1 and stage 2 endometriosis. So the intervention did actually result in an improvement. One of the quotes was, well, I heard since then, well, it didn't make much difference. But when you realise that infertility is multifactorial, there were probably other factors involved as well. So any increase like that in stage 1 and stage 2 endometriosis sufferers was clearly beneficial for them. So I wouldn't disagree with you completely, but I do think you've got to take it on board that there is some evidence that surgical intervention can help. And certainly in those patients whereby the financial costs of IVF are still quite, even in Australia, astronomical. Many patients can get this through the public sector or the private sector treatment of their endometriosis laparoscopically very cheaply or at no cost. Thanks, Dr Persson. So you're right that there was also a counter-randomised controlled trial by the Grupo Italiano which was a counter to that. And actually did not show any benefit. But I believe the Marcu study demonstrated an excess of conception and with treatment of minima and endometriosis of about 4% per month for a few months. So absolutely, that shared decision-making. Personally, I wouldn't like a laparoscopy to give me an extra 4% chance of a natural conception for four months, which I think the data was. So basically, the basis to my statement that I said without going into great detail was a review article published by Samy Glarner recently in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology. And their conclusions were what I basically said, that from looking at all the data, there is no real evidence of intervention for minor endometriosis. We're not talking about pain or significant diagnosed endometriosis on the outcomes of IVF, ovarian reserve, egg quality, embryo development, and euploidy rate. So that was the basis of my... I hate to disagree... I hate to agree with my opponents in a debate, but I'm going to... But there is actually a new network analysis by Rui Wang and some serious heavyweights in evidence-based medicine that pulls together the surgical studies. And the thing that made the most difference to this of mild and minimal endometriosis from a fertility point of view, not pain, is the use of oil-based uterine contrast. And I commend that paper to you, which fits with exactly what Roger is saying. Hi, my name's Lucy Prentice.  I work in Auckland. And I just wanted to point out the New Zealand perspective a little bit. Where we come from a country with very limited public funding for IVF. I'm currently running an RCT with Cindy Farquad directly looking at IVF versus IUI for unexplained infertility. And I'd just like to point out that both the ASRM and ESHRE guidelines, which are the most recent ones, both suggest that IUI should be a first-line treatment with oral ovarian stimulation. We have no evidence that IVF is superior based on an IPD meta-analysis published very recently and also a Cochrane review. And although we would love to be able to complete the family that our patients want from IVF and embryo banking, that option is really not available to a lot of people in New Zealand because of prohibitive costs. We know that IUI with ovarian stimulation is a very effective treatment for people with poor prognosis and unexplained infertility. And I also would just like to add that there's not a cost-effectiveness analysis that shows an improvement in cost-effectiveness for IVF. There's also never been a study looking at treatment tolerability between the two, so I don't think that you can say that IVF is a treatment that people prefer over IUI. So I may turn around and shoot myself in the foot based on our results that will be coming out next year, but I think at the moment I don't think you can say that IVF is better than IUI with ovarian stimulation for unexplained. We have time for two more questions from the audience, and we have two hands in the back. Now we can. It's the light green. OK. Hossam Zini from Melbourne. Thank you very much for the debate. It's very interesting. The problem is that all of the studies that have been done about comparing IUI to IVF, they are not head-to-head studies. The designs are different. They are having, like, algorithmic approach. For example, they compare three or four or five cycles of IUI to one cycle of IVF. But about 10 years ago, our group at the Royal Women's Hospital, we have done a study, a randomized control study, to compare IUI to IVF head-to-head, and we randomized the patients at the time of the trigger who only developed, so we did a low stimulation to get two to three follicles only, and that's why it was so hard to recruit lots of patients. So the criticism that was given to the study that it's a small sample size, but we end up with having IVF as a cost-effective treatment. Our IVF group had a live birth rate about 38%, and on the IUI, 12%. And with our cost calculations, we find out that the IVF is much more cost-effective than the IUI. But I believe that we all now believe in individualized kind of treatment, so patients probably who are younger than 34 years old probably wouldn't go straight to IVF. Maybe I'll do a laparoscopy and a histroscopy first, okay, and we may give them a chance to achieve a natural conception in the next three months or so. Patients who are older than 35, 37 years old probably will benefit straight from IVF. But again, in day-to-day life cases, we will not force the patient to go straight to IVF. I will talk to her and I'll tell her, these are your options, expectant treatment. This is the percentage that you would expect. IUI, this is what you expect. IUI with ovulation induction, this is what you expect. IVF, this is what you expect. And then she will discuss that with her partner and come back to me and tell me what she wants to do. Thanks. I saw a hand show up right next to you, so I'll add one more question given our time limitation. Thanks so much, Kate Stone-Mellon. I'd like to ask our panel to take themselves out of their role playing and put themselves in another role where they were the head of a very, very well-funded public service, and I'd like to ask the two sides what they really think about what they would do with a patient at the age of 35 with 12 months of unexplained infertility. Well, can I say that? Because that's my role in a different hat. LAUGHTER So, yeah, I run the state facility service in Western Australia. We looked at the data, because obviously that's what we're doing, IUI, IVF, and unfortunately we stopped doing IUI treatment. The success rate was so low. So we do go straight to IVF with unexplained infertility. Disappointing, as I'm sure you hear that, Kate, that we do. We looked at the data. Yeah, I think that I would still offer the patients the options, because some people don't want to do IVF. Even though it's completely free, they may not still want to do the injections and the procedure and take on the risks of the actual egg collection procedure. I don't know, religious issues with creating embryos. Yeah, I would still give patients the option. We have time for one more question in the back. We'll take the other ones offline afterwards. We'll get you a microphone just to make sure our listeners afterwards can listen. Following on from the New Zealand experience, which I've experienced... Hello? Yeah. From the New Zealand experience, and having worked here extensively and in New Zealand, you're not comparing apples with apples, Claire. That unexplained couple in New Zealand will wait five years to get funding and currently perhaps another two years to get any treatment. That's then an apples group compared to the pilot group who may, in fact, walk past the hospital and get treatment. The other thing about this, I think, that we need to forget, or don't forget, is the ethics of things here, two of which is that the whole understanding of unexplained infertility needs research and thinking. And if it wasn't for that understanding of what is the natural history of normal and then the understanding of pathology, we wouldn't do a lot of things in medicine. So if we have got a subgroup here that's unexplained, it's not just to the patient, we have a responsibility to future patients and ourselves to be honest and do research and learn about these factors. Now, it doesn't answer the debate, but it is something that's what drives the investigation and management of unexplained delay. And, for example, at the moment, there's quite a discussion about two issues of ethics, one about the involuntary childlessness of people that don't get to see us but don't have those children that they wanted to have because they didn't want to undergo treatment, or it was the involuntary childlessness of a second or subsequent child. And that's quite a big research issue in Europe, I realise, at the moment. And the final thing is about the information giving. The British case Montgomery 2015 has changed consent substantially, for those of you from England, that all information given to patients must include and document the discussion about expectant management versus all the different types of treatment, for and against and risks. And we're not currently doing that in IVF in this area, but if you read about what's happened in England, it's transformed consent in surgery. And I think a lot of our decision-making isn't in that way. So there are a couple of ethical principles to think about. Wonderful questions from the audience. Since we're coming up at the end of our time, we typically end the debate with closing remarks, but we'll forego that for this debate. And I'd actually like to just poll the audience. After hearing both the pro and the con side's arguments, by a show of hands, who in the audience believes that for the patient with unexplained infertility, as defined and detailed here broadly, should we be beginning with IVF? Should we be going straight to IVF? So by a show of hands. And I would say probably 50% of the room raised their hand. And those who think we should not be going straight to IVF? It feels like a little bit more. 40-60, now that I saw the other hands. Well, I'm going to call this a hung jury. I don't know that we have a definitive answer. Please join me in a round of applause for our panelists. In America, we would call that election interference. I wanted to thank our panelists, our live audience, and the listeners of the podcast. On behalf of Fertility and Sterility, thank you for the invitation to be here at your meeting and hosting this debate live from the Australian New Zealand Society for Reproductive Endocrinology meeting in Sydney, Australia. Thank you. This concludes our episode of Fertility and Sterility On Air, brought to you by the Fertility and Sterility family of journals in conjunction with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. This podcast was developed by Fertility and Sterility and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as an educational resource and service to its members and other practicing clinicians. While the podcast reflects the views of the authors and the hosts, it is not intended to be the only approved standard of living or to direct an exclusive course of treatment. The opinions expressed are those of the discussants and do not reflect Fertility and Sterility or the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.    

Fertility treatment becomes all invasive when trying to conceive and attending a clinic. So it is essential that family and friends are aware of this to some level, so that you can be supported and receive the compassion needed for both family and social events and when you have received bad news. Sharing with a small group of family and friends means that you can expand your support network, outside of your partner. If you would like support, please reach out to me for a free call. You can reach me through the website – www.ivfcoachingclinic.com.au   Just click on the green button to book your call.

Du Liebe, diese Folge ist eine ganz besondere Reise in die Welt der Weiblichkeit, Selbstliebe und Authentizität – und das mit keiner Geringeren als der wunderbaren Beata Lidia Przystalski. Beata ist nicht nur Coach und Mentorin, sondern inspiriert tausende Frauen über ihren Instagram-Account [@beatalidiaprzystalski](https://www.instagram.com/beatalidiaprzystalski/) mit ihrer strahlenden Lebensfreude und ihrem tiefen Verständnis für das, was es bedeutet, wirklich im Einklang mit sich selbst zu leben. In dieser Folge erfährst du: ✨ Wie du deine Weiblichkeit neu entdecken und feiern kannst ✨ Warum Selbstliebe der Schlüssel zu einem authentischen Leben ist ✨ Wie du deine wahre Essenz und Authentizität in allen Lebensbereichen lebst ✨ Welche Rolle pure Lebensfreude spielt, um in herausfordernden Zeiten im Vertrauen zu bleiben ✨ Praktische Tipps, um Leichtigkeit in deinen Alltag zu bringen – auch wenn der Kinderwunsch noch unerfüllt ist

In this episode, Carly Turner-Garcia, DVM, DACT, joins us to discuss ovum pick up (OPU) and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). She explains some of the advantages of these procedures, the overall success rate, the risks involved, and the facility requirements.The Disease Du Jour podcast is brought to you by Merck Animal Health.Disease Du Jour Podcast Hosts, Guests, and Links Episode 140:Host: Carly Sisson (Digital Content Manager) of EquiManagement | Email Carly (CSisson@equinenetwork.com) Guest: Carly Turner-Garcia, DVM, DACTPodcast Website: Disease Du JourThe Disease Du Jour podcast is brought to you in 2024 by Merck Animal Health.

In this episode, Carly Turner-Garcia, DVM, DACT, joins us to discuss ovum pick up (OPU) and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). She explains some of the advantages of these procedures, the overall success rate, the risks involved, and the facility requirements.The Disease Du Jour podcast is brought to you by Merck Animal Health.Disease Du Jour Podcast Hosts, Guests, and Links Episode 140:Host: Carly Sisson (Digital Content Manager) of EquiManagement | Email Carly (CSisson@equinenetwork.com) Guest: Carly Turner-Garcia, DVM, DACTPodcast Website: Disease Du JourThe Disease Du Jour podcast is brought to you in 2024 by Merck Animal Health.

Learn about OXO-001, a non-hormonal drug that increases pregnancy rates in women undergoing IVF or ICSI by enhancing embryo implantation. Also in this episode: patients with type 2 diabetes taking GLP-1 receptor agonists have a lower risk of certain obesity-associated cancers compared to those on insulin, though no significant reduction compared to metformin. Finally, the third story highlights research showing that smoking accelerates cognitive decline in memory and fluency, except for smokers with otherwise healthy lifestyles, who experience similar decline rates to non-smokers.

Todays' episode shines a spotlight on the importance of food as medicine when it comes to enhancing your fertility. In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to overlook the profound connection between the foods we consume and our overall health. Yet, this relationship is incredibly crucial. Viewing food as medicine  encourages us to view our diet not merely as a means to satisfy our hunger, but as a powerful tool to enhance our health, prevent diseases, and promote longevity. All of which are essential for promoting healthy fertility. Today, we look at three foods in particular: watermelon, beetroot & ginger and their relationship to uterine receptivity. Watermelon is rich in antioxidants is is linked to increasing NO (nitric oxide), a potent vasodilator (i.e. improves blood flow). Beetroot is also rich in several other bioactive compounds that also enhance blood flow and provide antioxidant and antiinflammatory benefits, particularly for disorders characterized by chronic inflammation. Not to mention that it is a great vegetarian source of iron. Last but not least, ginger! This superfood possesses multiple biological activities to enhance uterine receptivity and increase blood flow. Together - they make for a killer fertility enhancing combination. The data suggest that the intake of beetroot, watermelon and ginger juice significantly improved implantation and pregnancy rates. For example, a randomized study enrolled 436 female patients undergoing IVF with ICSI cycles over a period of 3 years. The clinical pregnancy rate (41% vs. 22%) were significantly higher in the "juice" group compared to the control group.You don't want to miss this one! Tune in for all things nutrition and fertility. You'll Learn: The role of diet in your fertility efforts The benefits of Watermelon, Beetroot & ginger for your fertility Research supporting the roll of superfoods and fertility success Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think others would love to hear it, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode or want to be a guest on the show? Leave a comment in the section below or visit the website to contact me!www.naturnalife.comSubscribing to The Podcast:If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon, or whatever your favorite podcast app is!Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. So if you have a minute, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 

Take a sneak peak at this month's Fertility & Sterility! Topics this month include the use of ICSI (4:51), fertility treatments among reproductive-aged women after cancer (7:43), oxygen tension during in vitro maturation (18:45), international gestational surrogacy in the United States (30:31), the menstrual cycle and weekly and lunar rhythms (39:42), AMH predicts ovulation in women with PCOS treated with clomid and metformin (46:29), laparoscopic Davydov vs laparoscopic Vecchietti neovaginoplasty in women with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome (58:32), and vNOTES retroperitoneal transient uterine artery occlusion (1:04:47). View Fertility and Sterility Volume 121, issue 4: https://www.fertstert.org/issue/S0015-0282(24)X0003-5 View Fertility and Sterility at https://www.fertstert.org/

Read the transcript: https://www.draimee.org/the-real-risks-with-ivf-that-everyone-should-know   I'm honored to have Dr. Jie Deng  as a guest on The Egg Whisperer Show podcast today. She is not only an Obgyn and Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist (did extra training studying high risk pregnancies), she is also a fertility doctor at Stanford University finishing up her Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellowship. We are talking about the risks of birth defects, autism and cancer with IVF treatment. She's also answering questions about whether ICSI increases the risk of birth defects as well as: should all IVF pregnancies have a fetal echocardiogram? Dr. Deng is so well versed in the topic IVF risks and high risk pregnancies, and I am excited to talk to her! Read the full show notes on Dr. Aimee's website Do you have questions about IVF?Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, April 22, 2024 at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom.   Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org. Other ways to connect with Dr. Aimee and The Egg Whisperer Show: Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips!Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates

In this intriguing episode of "Taco Bout Fertility Tuesday," Dr. Mark Amols takes us on a deep dive into the world of rescue ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection). With a blend of medical expertise and relatable analogies, Dr. Amols unfolds the complexities behind this emergency fertility procedure used in unexpected cases of failed fertilization. Discover why rescue ICSI isn't just a simple backup plan, but a nuanced decision with varying success rates compared to planned ICSI. This episode illuminates the crucial differences, providing clarity and hope for those navigating the challenging journey of IVF. Tune in to understand why in the delicate dance of creating life, timing and technique are everything!Thanks for tuning in to another episode of 'Taco Bout Fertility Tuesday' with Dr. Mark Amols. If you found this episode insightful, please share it with friends and family who might benefit from our discussion. Remember, your feedback is invaluable to us – leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred listening platform. Stay connected with us for updates and fertility tips – follow us on Facebook. For more resources and information, visit our website at www.NewDirectionFertility.com. Have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover? We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to us at TBFT@NewDirectionFertility.com. Join us next Tuesday for more discussions on fertility, where we blend medical expertise with a touch of humor to make complex topics accessible and engaging. Until then, keep the conversation going and remember: understanding your fertility is a journey we're on together.

Join us on StallSide as we dive into the world of recipient mare management with Crystal Howard, manager of the Rood & Riddle Reproduction Center. Crystal provides an exclusive look into the workings of the recipient mare program, shedding light on the care, selection, and vital role these mares play in equine reproduction. Discover the expertise and dedication behind maintaining a top-tier herd, and gain valuable insights into the practices at one of the industry's leading facilities. Whether you're a breeder, enthusiast, or simply curious about equine reproduction, this episode offers a captivating journey into the heart of recipient mare management.Watch episodes on YouTube @roodandriddle or visit us at www.rrvp.com

IVF is a process that involves creating an embryo in a lab. To help explain the process of creating those embryos, I'm joined today by embryologist, Salu Ribeiro. We're are talking about what happens in the lab, after eggs have been retrieved, what makes a "golden egg," and how fertilization works. We'll explain some of the terms  you may hear when you're doing IVF: ICSI (which is Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) and PICSI (which is physiological ICSI, where sperm are first chosen for ICSI). And, we talk about how embryos grow, and what an embryologist looks for in eggs, sperm, and embryos. I love talking to Salu about embryos, and this conversation is a lot of fun! Read the full transcript on Dr. Aimee's website. Do you have questions about IVF, and what to expect? Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, June 26, 2023 at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom. Looking for the best products to support you while you're TTC? Get Dr. Aimee's brand new Conception Kit here.   Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org  where you can schedule a consultation. Other ways to connect: Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips Join Egg Whisperer School Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates 

I may not be your fertility doctor, but it doesn't matter where you live. If you're thinking about or actively preparing for In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) then I'm so glad to have you here. My intention is to help you get ready for IVF — regardless of who your doctor is or where you live. These are the tips you can apply to your situation to take an active role in your fertility care. Step 1: Know your diagnosis Step 2: Assemble your team Step 3: Get organized & keep track of your files Step 4: Understand medication side effects Step 5: Understand your semen collection options Step 6: Decide if you are going to do IVF with or without ICSI or PICSI Step 7: Decide if you will genetically test the embryos Step 8: Understand if you will be at risk for OHSS Step 9: Prepare for the transfer Read all of the show notes on Dr. Aimee's website Do you have questions about IVF? Click here to join Dr. Aimee for The IVF Class. The next live class call is on Monday, January 22, 202r at 4pm PST, where Dr. Aimee will explain IVF and there will be time to ask her your questions live on Zoom. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more fertility tips! Subscribe to the newsletter to get updates Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh is one of America's most well known fertility doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She pioneered the TUSHY Method and BALLS Method to decrease your time to pregnancy. Learn more about the TUSHY Method and find a wealth of fertility resources at www.draimee.org.