Fertility treatments: The more the better

Many women may need more than two cycles of fertility treatments to get pregnant and older women may need to use donor eggs to succeed, a study found.

Women younger than 31 gave birth to a child 63 percent to 75 percent of the time with a third cycle of in vitro fertilization, while women ages 40 to 42 had a 19 percent to 28 percent success rate and those 43 and older had a 7 percent to 11 percent success rate, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. When using donor eggs, the likelihood of delivering a child was 60 percent to 80 percent for all ages, the research showed.

Fertility treatments are expensive; many insurance companies cover only a portion of the expenses for two to three cycles, the researchers said. Women tend to get discouraged when they don't get pregnant after the first treatment and abandon the effort, the study said. The study found that the more fertility treatments a woman undergoes, the better her chance of getting pregnant, said Barbara Luke, the lead author.

"For patients perhaps it's saying to look at treatment over a series of cycles rather than just one cycle," Luke, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said. "What this data shows is the live birthrate continues to increase with continued therapy. For insurers, this actually shows it continues to climb past three cycles. Two to three cycles are often covered by insurance. These findings may help insurance companies rethink their policy," she said.

The study, released Wednesday, is the first national analysis linking fertility cycles with live birthrates in the United States, she said. -- Bloomberg News