Czech Re­pu­blic

With its 10.6 mil­lion in­ha­bi­tants, the Czech Re­pu­blic is the ele­venth lar­gest country in the EU. The ca­pital city of Prague is the eco­nomic and cul­tural center of the country and at­tracts hordes of tou­rists every year. In 2017, for ex­ample, around 20 mil­lion vi­si­tors came to the Czech Re­pu­blic — most of them from Ger­many.

In ad­di­tion to its ap­peal to tou­rists, the Czech Re­pu­blic also has a long history of re­pro­duc­tive me­di­cine. Just four years after the first child con­ceived by in vitro fer­ti­liz­a­tion (IVF), Louise Brown, was born on July 25, 1978 [1], the first child con­ceived by IVF was born in the Czech Re­pu­blic in 1982 [2].

This de­ve­lo­p­ment con­ti­nues in the pre­sent: today there are more than 30 fer­ti­lity cli­nics in the Czech Re­pu­blic, with an in­cre­a­sing ten­dency. These are mainly me­dium to large fer­ti­lity cen­ters: about 37% of the cli­nics per­form bet­ween 500 — 1000 cy­cles per year, 23% even more than 1000 cy­cles per year [3]. Overall, about 14,000 in­fer­ti­lity tre­at­ments are per­formed in the Czech Re­pu­blic per year, the ma­jo­rity of them in the form of fresh ICSI cy­cles [3, 4].

As men­tioned above, the Czech Re­pu­blic has a long history of re­pro­duc­tive me­di­cine. An esti­mate of the ESHRE (Eu­ro­pean So­ciety of Human Re­pro­duc­tion and Em­bryo­logy) sug­gests that 4% of all children in the Czech Re­pu­blic have been born through as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion. For com­pa­rison: in the USA, for ex­ample, the per­cen­tage is 1% [5]. At the same time, a large number of Ger­mans who un­dergo in­fer­ti­lity tre­at­ment ab­road also choose the Czech Re­pu­blic as their de­sti­na­tion country. A study from 2015, for ex­ample, came to the con­clu­sion that around 41% of Ger­mans who de­cide to have in­fer­ti­lity tre­at­ment ab­road choose the Czech Re­pu­blic as their de­sti­na­tion country [6].

In the case of tre­at­ment ab­road, ad­di­tional costs such as travel and ac­com­mo­da­tion must be taken into ac­count in ad­di­tion to the ac­tual tre­at­ment costs. In ad­di­tion, aspects such as psy­cho­lo­gical stress due to the journey also play a role. In ad­di­tion, cou­ples should not only con­sider the cost of the tre­at­ment, but also all re­le­vant fac­tors of a tre­at­ment:

• How high is the suc­cess rate or the birth rate per punc­ture or “baby-take-home rate” of the clinic?
• What do former pa­ti­ents re­port about the qua­lity of tre­at­ment, the clinic equip­ment, and the pro­cess in ge­neral?
• What lan­guage is used to com­mu­ni­cate with phy­si­cians, pa­tient care pro­vi­ders, and to handle pa­per­work and con­tracts?

If you would like more in­for­ma­tion about fer­ti­lity tre­at­ment
in the Czech Re­pu­blic, we will be happy to help you. You can get free and non-bin­ding ad­vice on the topic from us.

In order to ful­fill your de­sire to have a child, you should choose a fer­ti­lity clinic that meets your re­qui­re­ments and where you feel com­for­table. When choo­sing a clinic, there are a number of aspects to con­sider in order to en­sure that the the­rapy goes as smoothly as pos­sible. The suc­cess of a the­rapy de­pends on va­rious fac­tors. Both the ex­pe­ri­ence and qua­li­fi­ca­tions of the me­dical team and the tech­no­lo­gical status of the la­bo­ra­tory equip­ment (for ex­ample, whe­ther the clinic has a clean room la­bo­ra­tory) can have an im­pact on the suc­cess rate.

In ad­di­tion to the suc­cess rate, there are other is­sues that can be de­cisive in the selec­tion pro­cess. Good coun­sel­ling on the choice of the­rapy, as well as per­sonal care and the avai­la­bi­lity of the doctor can help you to get rid of worries and un­ans­wered ques­tions. In order to go through with the pro­cess of ful­fil­ling your child wish with con­fi­dence, the ex­pe­ri­ences of pre­vious pa­ti­ents can also give an in­di­ca­tion of the qua­lity or short­co­mings of a prac­tice.

Ano­ther aspect are the costs. To avoid sur­prises, fer­ti­lity cen­tres that main­tain a high de­gree of price trans­pa­rency are re­com­mended. In the case of tre­at­ments with donor sperm, you should also make sure that there is a coope­ra­tion with an ex­pe­ri­enced sperm bank, as they often offer a larger selec­tion of donor pro­files and have many years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the field of sperm do­na­tion.

When selec­ting our partner cli­nics, we al­ways make sure that both he­te­ro­se­xual and ho­mo­se­xual cou­ples or sin­gles are treated.
Are you ha­ving a hard time choo­sing a fer­ti­lity centre or do you have ques­tions about dif­fe­rent the­ra­pies and tre­at­ment me­thods? Our friendly team will be happy to help you in a free con­sul­ta­tion ap­point­ment.

Sources:

1. Bolzen, S. (2018). Louise Brown, das erste Re­tor­ten­baby der Welt, wird 40 – WELT — https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article179900342/Louise-Brown-das-erste-Retortenbaby-der-Welt-wird-40.html
2. Czech Re­pu­blic: Re­pro­duc­tive Me­di­cine. (2015) — https://www.czechtourism.com/de/a/reproductive-medicine/
3. Human Re­pro­duc­tion. Sup­ple­men­tary Data (2016)
4. Gy­nekol, C. In vitro fer­ti­liz­a­tion — Ana­lysis of Data in Czech Na­tional As­sisted Re­pro­duc­tion Re­gister from the Years 2007–2011 (2012) — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23094774
5. ESHRE. ART Fact Sheet Fe­bruary 2018 (2018).
6. Fer­ti­lity Re­port Eu­rope. Eu­ro­pean Market Land­s­cape (2015)