As it can be seen in this chapter, regardless of the woman’s age, the number of eggs produced affects the cumulative probability of pregnancy.
Indeed, there is a direct correlation between the number of eggs produced and the possibility of having a baby. This question can be answered from two perspectives.
Women who produce very few eggs generally produce eggs and embryos of lower biological quality, which results in a fertilized egg (zygote) with a lower chance of reaching blastocyst stage (blastulation). This means that these embryos have a higher chance of dying before day 5. On the other hand, women who can produce more eggs have a higher chance of producing many blastocysts and, therefore, have a higher chance of having frozen embryos transferred after a single aspiration.
As it can be seen in Figure 15, women who can produce fewer than 7 eggs have significantly smaller chances of having a baby; and producing fewer than 4 eggs makes it even more difficult. On the other hand, the best chance are when the number of eggs varies between 11 and 20 because, in this way, there is a possibility of more blastocysts and a higher cumulative delivery rate. This is, added to the possibility of having a baby after the fresh embryo transfer and, if pregnancy is not achieved, the chance is increased by transferring frozen embryos.
Figure 15. Likelihood of delivery according to number of oocytes retrieved by follicular aspiration. Latin America 2017-2020.
The Latin American Registry of Assisted Reproduction (RLA) thanks the 204 institutions accredited by REDLARA which, every year, report their data to RLA.
This voluntary and rigorous contribution makes it possible to generate a powerful database, which helps doctors and patients take decisions based on the best existing regional evidence.
This educational portal is the result of a collaborative activity between the Latin American Network of Assisted Reproduction (REDLARA), and University Diego Portales from Chile, which allow the link between the reproductive science and technology advances with the needs of people suffering from infertility and other forms of reproductive impairments.
We thank Dr. Ariel Ahumanda and Dr. Gustavo Martínez from Argentina for: images and videos of spontaneous in vitro fertilization, ICSI and PGT,
Dr. Roger Molinas from Paraguay for: videos of follicular aspiration and embryo transfer,
Dr. Javier Crosby from Chile for: images of different stages of in vitro embryo development,
Dr. Yasuyuki Mio from Japan for his video of in vitro embryo development.
We especially thank the industry for providing the financial support, which is so necessary to keep the Latin American registry as a pillar of this international cooperation, which today includes 16 countries and more than 200 collaborative institutions, from Mexico in the north to Chile in the far south.
