THE NEONATAL CONSEQUENCES AND NEONATAL COST OF REDUCING THE NUMBER OFEMBRYOS TRANSFERRED FOLLOWING IVF

This clinical audit project examined the effects of change of policy b etween 1990 and 1993 transferring an average two (maximum three for pa rticular cases) embryos to women undergoing IVF in the West of Scotlan d programme. All women who achieved clinical pregnancy in 1990 (92 wom en) and 1993 (93 women) as a result of the IVF programme were included in the study The hospital records of women via the programme were ana lysed The results of the study showed that there was a significant red uction in the rate of multiple pregnancy, preterm birth and low birth weight babies in the 1993 group (new policy). The cost of neonatal int ensive care in 1993 for babies born following IVF was about nine times lower than that in 1990 (old policy). This study concluded that a pol icy of transferring two embryos (or three for particular cases) to wom en in an IVF programme, had improved the perinatal outcome and reduced the cost of the neonatal service for those babies.