Deciding whether to do PGT-A with IVF for low AMH

[RCP87]

Hi everyone

I’m 35 and experiencing secondary infertility. I’ve got an almost 3 year old and had 2 missed miscarriages in 2022. Paid for some private tests and have low AMH for my age (4.9) although 16 follicles. Hubby had a varicocele but after surgery we conceived our son, and his results have improved massively since lifestyle changes. We’ve tried for the last 6 months with no luck & my cycle is changing - shortening and bleeding mid cycle which consultant thinks could be due to hormonal imbalances due to low ovarian reserve so we’ve decided to try IVF.

Feeling a bit stuck on whether to do PGT-A. The consultant has said it could be of benefit given we’ve had a couple of miscarriages. I guess my concern is the extra cost, time and also risk of inaccurate results.

is anyone in a similar position / can offer any advice re PGT-A?

thanks

I have a slightly higher AMH than you but I'm 39 and I've done quite a lot of research into PGT-A testing. When I first started reading about it I thought I would definitely do it on my next cycle, but now I don't think I would. There is evidence to show that sometimes, aneuploid embryos result in healthy babies. For that reason I wouldn't do it. I only got 2 embryos anyway on my first cycle but I imagine with your AMH you'd probably get a similar number per cycle. If I got, say, 3 embryos, I would have the best one transferred on its own and then if that failed I'd probably have the remaining 2 transferred together and hope for the best.

This article is a few years old now but very interesting: www.thecut.com/2017/09/ivf-abnormal-embryos-new-last-chance.html

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

Hi @RCP87 - sorry to barge in on your post. I don't have an answer on the PGT-A point. I was just interested how your husband got on with the varicocele surgery? I think my husband might have to consider doing the same and just wondered whether it was worth it in terms of significantly improving parameters etc x

Hi @alt22 my husband had 1% normal morphology and went to see a private urologist who confirmed he had a grade 4 varicocele. He had it operated on, and 3 months later we conceived our son, our first pregnancy in 20 months of trying! he has been tested again more recently, around the time of our miscarriages, and morphology is up to 5%. Other parameters have improved inc motility too but I can’t remember those off the top of my head. He’s been taking Impryl and also mostly avoiding caffeine and alcohol and it all seems to have done the trick! Good luck to you and your husband and happy to answer any other questions x

Hi @countrypunk thanks, that’s really helpful. Since posting I’ve done some more research and reached a similar conclusion, so we’re not going to do it. Best of luck to you too

@tara17x I’ve just seen your post on another thread re PGTA and thought you might find this article interesting. It helped me decide not to do it with our upcoming ivf round