News Release

February 17, 2004

Contact: Maureen McGuire, 860-679-4523
e-mail: mmcguire@nso.uchc.edu

UConn Center for Advanced Reproductive Services Achieves Success in Reducing Incidence of Triplets

Farmington, Conn. - There is good news for Connecticut couples who are weighing the option of advanced reproductive services to help start a family.

The incidence of high-order birth rates - triplets or more - is 30 percent lower at the Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the University of Connecticut Health Center than the national average. This is according to the most recent report from the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART), the agency that reports in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). SART recently released the latest pregnancy data for 2001.

“One of the issues of primary concern for us, as well as the CDC, is keeping the rate of multiple births as low as possible to reduce risk to both the mother and the baby,” said Claudio Benadiva, M.D., the Center’s IVF Lab Director. “We are proud of our success in keeping the percentage of pregnancies with triplets low, and will continue our efforts to ensure healthy mothers and babies,” he added.

Although published data for 2003 is not yet available, Dr. Benadiva said preliminary data demonstrates additional reductions in higher order multiple rates at the Center.

For the first time, the SART 2001 report includes an additional measure of success: singleton live-birth rates. This is an important measure of success, because singleton live births have a much lower risk than multiple-infant births for adverse infant health outcomes, including pre-maturity, low birth weight, disability and death.

2001 SART (Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies) data

The Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at UConn Health Center:

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/ART01/PDF/ART2001.pdf

“Assisted reproductive technologies have given literally hundreds of thousands of couples throughout the world the opportunity to have children. Many infertile couples had little hope of conceiving prior to the availability of these advances in medical technology,” Dr. Benadiva added. UConn opened one of the first IVF centers in the state in the early 1980’s and is now the largest center in Connecticut with more than 1,000 IVF cycles in the last year.

Today, the Center offers many advanced techniques to help patients achieve successful pregnancies. For more information, please call 860-679-4580 or visit the website at www.fertilitycenter-uconn.org.

For more information about any of the above information pertaining to success rates, SART, or any of the national accreditations, please call 860-679-4324.

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