There are more than 130 fer­ti­lity cen­ters in Ger­many. These are pre­do­mi­nantly me­dium and large cen­ters: ap­pro­xi­mately 32% of cli­nics per­formed bet­ween 200 — 500 cy­cles per year, about 24% of cli­nics bet­ween 500 — 1000 cy­cles and 19% even over 1000 cy­cles per year [1].

Thereby, about 110,000 tre­at­ment cy­cles with as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion were per­formed in Ger­many in 2017. This cor­re­sponds to a growth of about 5% com­pared to the pre­vious year alone — a trend which has been on­going for a long time [2]. For com­pa­rison: in 2000, the number of cy­cles was still slightly more than half (just under 62,000 cy­cles) — [3]. Re­gar­ding the pre­ferred me­thods, ICSI pro­ce­dures ac­count for about 75% of tre­at­ments, IVF pro­ce­dures still about 25% [2]. This is dif­fe­rent from, for ex­ample, other Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, where in many cases ICSI tre­at­ments are used to a much greater extent.

The in­cre­a­sing re­le­vance of as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion in Ger­many also means that more and more children are born by means of IVF or ICSI. In 2016, this pro­por­tion was 3% — equi­va­lent to one child per school class % [2]. By com­pa­rison, in the USA this pro­por­tion is only around 1% [4].

What stands out in Ger­many is the still very high pro­por­tion of mul­tiple pregnan­cies in as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion: ap­pro­xi­mately 21% of births are twins, and 0.5% are triplets. Mul­tiple pregnan­cies are often not de­sired by the par­ents, but are in­cre­a­singly a re­sult of as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion. The rate in Ger­many is si­gni­fi­cantly higher than in other Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, where it is so­me­times less than 10% [2].

In order to fulfil 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. Human Re­pro­duc­tion. Sup­ple­men­tary Data (2016)
2. Deut­sches IVF Re­gister. Jahr­buch (2017) — https://www.deutsches-ivf-register.de/perch/resources/dir-jahrbuch-2017-deutsch-final‑4.pdf
3. Deut­sches IVF Re­gister. Jahr­buch (2000) ‑https://www.deutsches-ivf-register.de/perch/resources/downloads/dirjahrbuch2000.pdf4. ESHRE. ART Fact Sheet Fe­bruary 2018 (2018).