What an IVF doc should tell his 39 year old patient...

Just from my limited experience, informed consent about all aspects of IVF is something I see so rarely that I had to blog about it. The points below are excerpted from a letter written by an IVF doc to the family physician of a 39 year old fertility patient. My hat goes off to the straight up honesty portrayed, and it raises the question, 'why is everyone in a similar scenario not told the same things?'...

- '...I explained a percentage of the eggs will not be mature (metaphase II), approximately one third of eggs will not fertilize, and approximately half of the fertilized eggs will stop developing prior to transfer or freeze. Only a portion of the developing embryos are likely to be graded of high quality and would have a reasonable likelihood of implantation.'
- '...The potential complications arising from multiple gestation were reviewed including: low birth weight, prematurity, pulmonary, gastrointestinal and visual complications. As well, the risk of cerebral palsy and the risks of birth defects associated with in vitro fertilization were reviewed.'
- '...We did discuss that isolated reports on IVF demonstrate a greater risk of abnormalities, but this is not confirmed by the vast majority of studies.'
- '...We did discuss that sperm injection with intrinsic sperm issues may be associated with an increased risk of sex chromosomal abnormalities and hypospadias.'

Does your IVF doc tell their potential patients these things? Are they supposed to?

I have also attached the ASRM (american society for reproductive medicine) guidelines for genetic issues & ICSI, as well as sperm DNA fragmentation. Great to understand what is accepted as 'true' as far as the ASRM is concerned.