As a beacon of hope for many infertile couples, IVF offers two pathways for patients to achieve their dream of parenthood. The IVF process involves cycles leading up to the embryo transfer, mainly divided into natural and medicated cycles. Understanding the differences between these cycles is important for making the right choices during your IVF journey.
What is the Natural IVF Cycle?
Natural Cycle IVF gathers eggs naturally, without the need for injections or stimulants, by utilising your menstrual cycle. The egg utilised for fertilisation is the one that your body spontaneously chooses. To assure the quality of the growing egg, doctors utilise ultrasound to monitor your cycle and assess the blood supply to it during therapy.
For women who are still ovulating and would like not to use IVF stimulation medications or injections, natural cycle IVF is a viable alternative.
Advantages of Natural IVF Cycle
The natural IVF cycle has some advantages for the patients who undergo it as follows:
- Shorter treatment duration, less fertility medications, and no injections.
- Reduced negative consequences and psychological strain.
- Less chance of developing ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).
- Better-quality eggs.
- Minimised hazards to infants’ long-term health.
- Increased likelihood of a successful implantation.
Disadvantages of Natural IVF Cycle
Even though it has some benefits, the natural cycle is also accompanied by some drawbacks as follows:
- Without fertility drugs, ovulation might happen too early. This results in cancelling the treatment at any time.
- If the chosen egg is unhealthy, there’s no backup to use another egg to achieve a successful outcome.
- As there are no extra embryos available it is called a “one chance” cycle.
- Natural IVF has lower pregnancy rates as it involves a natural menstrual cycle, sometimes as low as 7%.
For Whom is it Intended?
The natural IVF cycle can be beneficial for women who have the following conditions:
- Women who produce fewer or lower-quality eggs.
- Women who produced less than three eggs and didn’t react well to standard IVF.
- Women who wish to stay away from the high stimulation of drugs and their negative effects.
- Women with elevated FSH or low AMH levels can choose the natural IVF cycle.
- Older women who would want to use their own eggs rather than a donor.
- Women with a history of malignancies linked to hormonal changes.
- Women with medical conditions that prevent them from using stimulants.
What is a Medicated IVF Cycle
When you first hear about IVF the most often method you may know is medicated IVF in which you are given hormonal injections on a daily basis for up to 28 days to place you into a state of temporary “menopause,” known as downregulation. To stimulate your ovaries to produce more eggs, you receive further injections with larger dosages of hormones.
Advantages of Medicated IVF Cycle
Modern conventional methods always come up with advanced features as follows:
- More eggs increase the likelihood of a healthy pregnancy. Depending on age and health, the success rate of conventional IVF can reach 40%, making it one of the most effective techniques.
- More eggs enable medical professionals to identify issues and employ methods like ICSI to increase success.
- Only the healthiest embryos are used since extra embryos can be examined for genetic problems.
- Unused embryos from the first cycle can be donated or kept for later use.
Disadvantages of Medicated IVF Cycle
You can also see the adverse effects of medicated IVF cycle as follows:
- Your body may overreact to fertility medications, resulting in pain and bloating as adverse effects. Rarely, it may become a serious cause for developing OHSS. IVF might not be the best option if you are at high risk.
- Using more than one embryo can result in multiple births like twins or more; however, this is uncommon.
- The numerous injections required during IVF can be difficult, particularly for needle-phobic people.
- Medicated IVF cycles can be expensive.
For Whom is it Intended?
Medicated IVF may be useful if either you or your partner has:
- Blocked or damaged fallopian tubes.
- Endometriosis.
- Sperm problems such as low sperm count, sperm motility, or no sperm at all.
- PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) or any other ovarian problem.
- Uterus-related problems.
- Possibility of genetic transmission of a disease.
- have unexplained infertility.
- Using a gestational carrier or egg from an egg donor.
Comparison Between Natural IVF Cycle and Medicated IVF Cycle
In high-stimulation IVF (medicated IVF), daily injections control your cycle to produce multiple eggs. In natural cycle IVF, only one naturally selected egg is collected and used. Here the below table will provide you with all the information about these two ways of IVF cycles as follows:
| Aspects | Natural Cycle | Conventional IVF |
|---|---|---|
|
Patient suitability |
• Older patients
• Lower ovarian reserve
• Want to reduce risks & side-effects
• Want less medication
|
Good ovarian reserve
(typically under 35 years old)
|
|
Injection time |
None - 4 days |
21-28
days
|
|
Medication dosage |
None -Low |
Medium - High |
|
Treatment duration |
Up to 2 weeks |
Up to 4 weeks |
|
Cycle control |
Works with a woman's natural menstrual cycle |
Shuts down natural menstrual cycle (downregulation) |
|
Time between cycles |
No break needed
|
2-3 months break due to stimulation |
|
Focus of treatment |
Quality of eggs & embryos |
Quantity of eggs & embryos |
|
Benefits |
Reduced injections |
Increased chances of multiple eggs for fertilization |
|
|
Shorter treatment time |
More control over the cycle |
|
|
Greatly reduced side-effects |
Better success rates with embryo selection |
|
|
Reduced stress/emotional impact |
Higher chances of pregnancy per cycle
|
|
|
Reduced risk of OHSS |
Increased chances of multiple eggs for fertilization |
|
Potentially for babies |
Reduced risk of low birth weights |
Improved chances of a healthy birth weight
|
|
|
Reduced risk of prematurity |
Lower risk of prematurity |
|
|
Reduced risk of long-term health implications |
Reduced chance of long-term health complications |
Conclusion
IVF involves many decisions that can affect the outcome. Choosing between natural and medicated cycles is an important one. By understanding the differences, considering your situation, and working with fertility specialists, you can find the best approach to help you reach your goal of becoming a parent. Think about the time, effort, and cost you are going to spend before choosing the cycles that suit you best.
