One cycle is the wrong unit of measurement. That is the most useful thing you can read about IVF success rates, and almost no page says it that plainly.
Clinics usually quote a percentage per cycle. That number feels low, and it is low. It simply does not answer your question.
Success accumulates.
Your question is a different one. How likely is it that this journey ends with a child? That chance grows with every complete cycle, and it changes the whole picture.
What is the IVF success rate per cycle?
The largest registry study followed 156,947 women and 257,398 cycles in the United Kingdom. In women under forty, a first cycle with their own eggs ended in a live birth 32.3 percent of the time (PMID 26717030). Between forty and forty-two that figure was 12.3 percent. Above forty-two it stayed under four percent.
Those are the raw numbers, with no soft edges around them. They describe women who started a cycle, not women who finished a whole treatment path.
| Age at treatment | Live birth after the first cycle | Cumulative after six cycles |
|---|---|---|
| Under 40 | 32.3% | 68.4% |
| 40 to 42 | 12.3% | 31.5% |
| Over 42 | less than 4% | not reported separately |
| With donor eggs | no decline with age | no decline with age |
Every figure in this table comes from the same study (PMID 26717030). Look closely at the gap between the second and the third column.
Why is one cycle the wrong measure?
Because the chances stack up. A woman who continues after a failed attempt does not start again from zero. Each complete cycle adds to the last one. That is why researchers use the cumulative chance: the chance of a child after a run of attempts. Under forty it climbs to 68.4 percent after six cycles (PMID 26717030).
A complete cycle counts the transfer of fresh embryos and of frozen embryos from the same egg retrieval. That is a fairer unit than a single transfer.
A second registry, covering 178,898 Scottish women, shows the same pattern (PMID 26783243). After three complete cycles the cumulative chance lands between 42.3 and 57.1 percent. After eight cycles the upper estimate rises to 82.4 percent.
What do conservative and optimal mean?
The difference sits in the women who stop. The conservative estimate assumes that nobody who dropped out would ever have had a child. The optimal estimate assumes they had the same chance as the women who continued. The truth sits somewhere between the two. Clinics tend to quote the upper number.
| Complete cycles | Conservative estimate | Optimal estimate |
|---|---|---|
| 3 cycles | 42.3% | 57.1% |
| 8 cycles | not reported separately | 82.4% |
These figures come from a cohort treated between 1999 and 2007 (PMID 26783243). Lab technique has moved on since then. Read them as a direction, not as a promise.
Ask your clinic which of the two numbers they are quoting. That single word shifts the answer by nearly fifteen percentage points.
What does egg donation tell us about age?
This is the most striking part of the same study. Women treated with donor eggs showed no decline in their chance as they got older (PMID 26717030). The age curve that runs so steeply with a woman's own eggs disappeared entirely. That points to age acting mainly through the egg itself.
Not through your uterus. It stays, these figures suggest, suitable for far longer than the eggs do.
This is not encouragement and it is not a promise. Egg donation carries strict rules in the Netherlands, and it is a heavy decision for anyone. It is still a figure you deserve to know. How age plays out without IVF sits in getting pregnant after 35.
What does AMH predict, and what does it not?
AMH predicts how many eggs a stimulation is likely to yield. So it predicts your response, not your chance of a baby. In a meta-analysis of 42 studies, AMH did not do this better than the antral follicle count, because the difference between the two was not significant (PMID 37370145). It measures quantity, not quality.
Imagine two women of 38 with the same AMH of 1.4 ng/ml. One yields ten eggs at retrieval, the other four. The second woman can still get pregnant while the first does not. AMH looks at the supply, not at what sits inside a single egg.
What AMH does do is help the clinic set the dose and the expectations. The numbers by age sit in the article on the AMH value by age, and the marker itself is explained on the page about AMH. FSH also says something about your response, and nothing firm about the outcome.
Can your thyroid affect your chance?
An association has been found, not a cause. In a meta-analysis of twelve studies and 4,876 women, those with thyroid antibodies had a lower live birth rate and more miscarriages (PMID 27323769). The authors themselves warn explicitly against reading a causal link into that finding.
That warning matters, because a tempting conclusion sits right there. If the antibodies were the culprit, levothyroxine should help. Cochrane found too little evidence to show a better live birth rate.
Even so, TSH and TPO antibodies appear in almost every IVF protocol. That is why they sit in our IVF blood test and in the broader IVF blood test complete. Thuisarts and the NHG always read thyroid values as a whole, never as one number.
How many times can you try IVF?
There is no fixed medical number. What the registries show is that the chance keeps rising with each complete cycle, while the gain per extra attempt gets smaller (PMID 26783243). How many attempts are reimbursed is a separate question, and that depends on your insurer and your clinic.
Most women do not stop because their chance is zero. They stop because the money, the body or the emotional room has run out. That is a valid reason, and it is your reason.
What you pay yourself sits in IVF costs and reimbursement. What happens inside an attempt is covered in the IVF egg retrieval and in IVF or ICSI.
How I read these numbers
I would never look at the first-cycle figure alone. That number is real, but it is the start of the curve and not the end of it. The cumulative chance belongs in the same conversation. So ask for it yourself, even when your clinic does not raise it first.
What strikes me as well: the age curve is about eggs, not about you as a person. A chance of 31.5 percent is also not zero. That is roughly one in three.
If you want to know where your hormones sit before your first consultation, you can have those values measured with the fertility assessment. The full overview of the treatment path sits in what is IVF. Take your result to your clinic and ask them for your cumulative chance, not only the one for the first attempt.
References
- Smith ADAC, Tilling K, Nelson SM, Lawlor DA. Live-Birth Rate Associated With Repeat In Vitro Fertilization Treatment Cycles. JAMA. 2015;314(24):2654-2662. PMID 26717030.
- McLernon DJ, Maheshwari A, Lee AJ, Bhattacharya S. Cumulative live birth rates after one or more complete cycles of IVF: a population-based study of linked cycle data from 178,898 women. Hum Reprod. 2016;31(3):572-581. PMID 26783243.
- Liu Y, Pan Z, Wu Y, Song J, Chen J. Comparison of anti-Mullerian hormone and antral follicle count in the prediction of ovarian response: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Ovarian Res. 2023. PMID 37370145.
- Busnelli A, Paffoni A, Fedele L, Somigliana E. The impact of thyroid autoimmunity on IVF/ICSI outcome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Hum Reprod Update. 2016;22(6):775-790. PMID 27323769.
- NHG, Thuisarts and Cochrane. Information on fertility, thyroid values and IVF. Available via thuisarts.nl.
Every blood test result at Lunara includes a professional assessment by a BIG-registered doctor. For treatment decisions, discuss your results with your GP.
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