Fertility for Over 40s
Age has a high impact on fertility and egg quality. Women are born with their lifetime supply of eggs which diminish in quantity and quality with age, and when a woman reaches 40, her chances of pregnancy significantly decline.
Our approach is to focus on your personal family building goals and individual fertility healthcare needs, to design a tailored treatment plan. We can offer treatment options which can optimise your chance of success depending on your goals and your fertility needs.
What are the key elements which influence the success of IVF treatment?
- Embryo quality - Many IVF treatments are unsuccessful as the embryos fail to implant or the pregnancy ends in spontaneous miscarriage. The reason for this is that many of the transferred embryos are not chromosomally normal. Research suggests that more than 50% of human eggs have chromosomal problems and that this increases with age, so it’s likely to be the main reason older patients have fewer chromosomally normal embryos.
- Successful selection of the chromosomally normal embryos. We use our own Caremaps embryo selection technique, or we can also use pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT-A) to identify the embryos with the highest potential for success
- The receptivity and health of the endometrium. The uterine lining must be receptive to embryo implantation. When transferring an embryo, the endometrium must be in a receptive state to allow successful implantation - this period of receptivity is called the window of implantation, and it varies between different people. We can test to assess both endometrial health and the best time for embryo transfer
What are my chances of success with IVF for over 40s using my own eggs?
What are the chances of success for IVF with donor eggs over 40?
Some tests and techniques we may recommend
Pre-Implantation Genetic Testing (PGT-A)
PGT-A does not improve embryo quality but it does give us information about your embryo's genetic health to help us select viable embryos for transfer, which can reduce the time to pregnancy.
Endometrial Receptivity Analysis (ERA)
We can use ERA to assess the optimum time to transfer your embryo so that it has the best chance of implanting and establishing a pregnancy. The womb lining (or endometrium) is only receptive to implantation for a short period, known as the implantation window.
The main benefit of the ERA test is that we can provide a personalised embryo transfer timing, optimising the chances of implantation.
EMMA and ALICE tests
Endometrial health is one of the key factors which can impact reproductive health, in fact studies have shown that as high as 20% of fertility problems are potentially caused by issues with the endometrium.
EMMA and ALICE are screening tests that assess bacteria in the uterine cavity. We can recommend various approaches depending on test results, including probiotic treatment to balance the endometrial flora.
Support with Care
Becoming a Care patient
Our patient-centric approach ensures that our teams provide all our patients with dedicated support, clear advice, and the highest quality of care. If you have any questions, or if you’d like to talk to one of our team about your options, it’s easy to get started call us on 0800 564 2270 or book a consultation