Judicious Fertility Treatment to Minimise the Risk of Multiple Pregnancy

Abstract

Pregnancies resulting from fertility treatment are associated with higher rates of multiple pregnancy and have higher rates of pregnancy complications than spontaneously conceived pregnancies. Methods exist to make fertility treatment safer and less likely to result in multiple pregnancy and practitioners should be practicing fertility treatment with the aim to produce a healthy, term, singleton pregnancy. Approaches to minimising the risk of multiple pregnancy include carefully monitoring ovulation induction (OI) cycles to produce mono-follicular ovulation. Identifying patients at risk of excessive response to ovulation induction and treating them with low dose therapies and close monitoring is a critical step in practicing safe OI treatment. Performing single embryo transfer in all but exceptional cases of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and never transferring more than two embryos, is the single, most successful way to reduce the multiple pregnancy rate with IVF. An appreciation of the increased risk of mono-chorionic twinning with IVF is also important. This chapter will explore ways to minimise the risk of multiple pregnancy with a variety of fertility treatments.