HUFFINGTON
10.07.12
JEAN CLAUDE MOSCHETTI/REA/REDUX
MIRACLE BABIES
Lucky, perhaps, but not alone.
Though few studies track how often
a spontaneous pregnancy after use
of assisted reproductive technology occurs, those that do suggest it
is not uncommon. Most recently, a
French paper published this summer in the journal Fertility and
Sterility found that 17 percent of
women who gave birth after IVF
became pregnant again within six
years — this time on their own.
Among couples whose IVF failed,
the rate of spontaneous pregnancy
was even higher: 24 percent of the
women became pregnant in the
years after treatment. A 2008 German study found that 20 percent
of couples who conceived a child by
intracytoplasmic sperm injection
— a form of IVF in which a single
sperm is injected directly into an
egg — and who subsequently tried
to get pregnant naturally, succeeded. Estimates suggest that normal,
healthy women have around a 20
to 25 percent chance of getting
pregnant per menstrual cycle.
Many fertility doctors say the
findings bear out, at least anecdotally. “I tell my [IVF] patients,
‘You know, after you have your
baby, your OB is going to come to
discharge you and tell you to use
birth control if you don’t