Choosing An Infertility Clinic

Trying to have a baby can be a very complicated issue for many couples. As many as one in four couples will experience infertility, leading many to pursue finding an infertility clinic to help them achieve a pregnancy.

Most couples will not even see an infertility doctor until they have been trying for a year to conceive. Many will begin seeking help from their family doctor or their gynecologist. This is a good starting point for most patients as these physicians can run standard tests and do some basic screening to discover what the problem is.

For up to 85% of couples the cause of their infertility will be found leading them to treatment options. For the other 15% it will remain a mystery, although there are still treatment options that they can pursue to obtain their goal of having a baby. For couples who are ready to move on from their family doctor or gynecologist, it may be time to look into an infertility clinic for treatment.

What is an Infertility Clinic?

An infertility clinic is set up to work with infertile patients. Unlike your local physician or gynecologist, an infertility clinic is a place where the patients are all infertile and the clinic is designed to work with that clientele. There are some things to consider before selecting an infertility clinic and it is important to evaluate each clinic.

There are many infertility clinics around the country and your own doctor can give a recommendation for local infertility clinics. There is also an organization called Resolve that was created to educate patients that are dealing with infertility. Once you have established which clinics that are convenient to you or that you may possibly have insurance through the next step is to set up an interview with a doctor at that infertility clinic.

Make sure that both of you can attend this very important meeting, that way you can compare your feelings about the clinic. Resolve has a comprehensive list of questions that can be asked at this meeting and these questions can be found on their web-site.

Common questions that should be asked are finding out about the doctors credentials and how long they have been working with infertile couples? Find out about how many doctors are within the infertility clinic and how many would you be seeing? Finding out an infertility clinics success rate is also important. Success rates involve high tech procedures like Invitro Fertilization and let a patient know if this clinic is having success with their procedures.

When dealing with infertility it is important to educate yourself about procedures and possible treatment options. Read books and again, Resolve has local chapters across the country to help educate patients about infertility. Many patients that begin infertility treatments will have success and be able to complete their families, but it can be a long process.