Articles

Patients with poor ovarian reserve can be extremely hard to counsel, especially when they're young and have regular periods because they can't understand why they're not being able to get pregnant and why they're failing repeated IVF cycles. After all, they have eggs, t...

One of the most worrisome aspects of an IVF cycle is the uncertainty involved. The patient never knows whether the next cycle is going to work or not - and neither does the doctor ! The problem is compounded by the fact that they know very little about what happens duri...

I recently attended an  IVF conference in Delhi, and came away with the impression that a lot of IVF doctors there seem to feel that every Indian patient who's infertile has tuberculosis. They feel that it's a ubiquitous disease, and that the only reason we don't diagno...

Patients who fail an IVF cycle are extremely vulnerable . This failure is often the last straw, because they are not sure what to do next. They have no idea why the cycle failed, even though the doctor was so optimistic at the time of the transfer. They are usually comp...

Patient engagement has become a buzzword today, and lots of efforts have been made to involve patients in their own health care. Here's a free simple way which any doctor can use to empower their patients . After telling the patient what medicines he needs to take, he...

Lots of clinics do Day 5 ( blastocyst)  transfers, but they  usually reserve them for patients with a good ovarian response - patients who have good eggs and lots of embryos , because they're pretty confident that they will get Day 5 embryos. However, they will use dou...

One of the commonest complaints patients have about doctors is that they don't bother to explain anything to them. Most of their explanations are short and sweet - curt and to the point. They're full of medical jargon, which means that the patient usually doesn't have...

An excellent paper, authored by some of the world's leading IVF clinicians, appeared in Human Reproduction, the leading IVF medical journal, in Jan 2017. Adjuncts in the IVF laboratory: where is the evidence for ‘add-on’ interventions? "Those advocating and recommen...

Dear Dr Malpani, I read your recent email with interest, as it relates directly to me. After 5 years of IVF and only one successful transfer, which occurred last year at the age of 49 (2016) and I was pregnant for 11 weeks. Unfortunately the embryo failed at 11 wee...