To try to get pregnant, couples dealing with infertility may try to increase their odds for conception by changing their lifestyle or taking extra vitamins. Some, however, have started turning to lady luck hoping to win a free IVF treatment.

Recently, fertility clinics across that country have held contests that offer one major prize: the chance to have a baby. Using promotion like random drawings, charity runs and essay competitions, these treatment centers have been able to give infertile couples the chance at a family.

Part of the motivation is altruistic. With fertility treatments costing up to $25,000, a free round of IVF could, for some, be the difference between having a baby and not. For example, Jessica Upham, who won an embryo implant from Long Island IVF, a clinic in Melville, New York.

“I feel inadequate that I can’t provide this to my husband the natural way,” Upham told the The New York Times. She says the prize is, “a wonderful opportunity that I wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Still, it can partially be a publicity stunt.

“I hesitate to use the word ‘marketing,’ but we wanted to get our name out there,” Robin Musiak, the executive director of Reproductive Health Specialists, a Pittsburgh clinic that’s conducted several raffles, told The New York Times. “It worked really well.”

However, not everyone in the industry shares Robin’s thoughts. Some believe these winners should be based on need not luck. As of now, no centers screen for financial need or insurance that might cover the procedure, so someone who can’t afford IVF could easily lose out to someone who can. To some, there’s also a morality issue. Pamela Madsen, a founder and former executive director of the American Fertility Association does not understand how it is “against the law to raffle off a puppy, but people are allowed to raffle off the opportunity to have a baby.”

But as long as doctors are willing to offer their service, raffles for free IVF treatment (and ultimately a family) will continue to be an option.

Do you think it’s right to raffle off IVF treatments?

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When it comes to in vitro fertilization (IVF) there are potential risks: ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, stress and, now, birth defects, but for some families, the fertility procedure may be their only hope for conception.

This past weekend, researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition reported that  IVF may increase birth defect risk, especially in the heart, eyes, reproductive organs and urinary systems.

The study, conducted by scientists from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), analyzed birth defects among infants conceived both via IVF and naturally in California. The group included 4,795 IVF babies and 46,025 naturally conceived babies. After controlling for other factors that can cause birth defects, such as mother’s age and race, the scientist found that 9 percent of the IVF-born infants had defects compared to 6.6 percent of babies who were conceived naturally.

The scientists, however, didn’t discover why the treatment can lead to birth defects. Some say it could be linked to the cause of infertility, but they have yet to find a solid reason.

Dr. Lorraine Kelley-Quon, the study’s lead scientist and a general surgery resident at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, says that this information isn’t meant to scare potential IVF patients. Rather, it is meant to inform them.

“For parents considering in vitro fertilization or other forms of assisted reproductive technology, it is important that they understand and discuss with their doctor the potential risks of the procedure before making a decision,” Kelley-Quon says.

And for some who long for a child, the reward may outweigh the risk.

Would the IVF risks prevent you from having the procedure?

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Hello, Bumpies! Thank you so much for reading this and joining in on my infertility journey. Let’s catch you up, shall we?

First of all, I’m Melanie. I’ve been married to Brad for just over a year and while our first year was challenging at times, we faced those challenges together. The largest challenge came six months after we started trying for a baby.

I discontinued my Mirena IUD in October 2011, a month after we were married. We began actively trying for a child in January, under the advice of my doctor. I started taking prenatal vitamins and we began trying to conceive with high hopes. Six months came and went with nothing. My cycles are a little irregular, so we thought we were just having difficulty getting the timing just right. In July, we still had no positive results, so my doctor ordered blood work for me and semen analysis for Brad.

My bloodwork came back a little low and the preliminary thought was that I might not be ovulating. Our hearts sank. They sank even lower when we got Brad’s results — zero sperm. His final diagnosis: CBAVD (Congenital Bilateral Absence of the Vas Deferens). In layman’s terms, my husband has no exit ramp for sperm. They’re trapped.

Months of diagnosis and multiple doctors led us to this: In-vitro fertilization (IVF) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). It’s our only option to have biological children. Brad’s condition means that his sperm don’t get a chance to mature fully, so they can’t swim. The ICSI part means that the doctors will physically place one of Brad’s sperm in one of my eggs to to make our babies. Don’t get me wrong — we’re not trying for twins. The doctor will only implant one embryo on the first go-round and we’ll freeze the rest in case we need or want them later.

Right now, we’re coordinating services with Brad’s urologist and my IVF doctor to extract Brad’s sperm and prepare me for IVF (extracting eggs, fertilizing eggs, implanting embryos). We’re also working towards getting approved for adoption. Brad and I had talked about adoption even before learning of our infertility issues. We feel that, as a result of our diagnoses, we need to start the process now. It’s usually a four- to six-month process of parent-training, home studies and background checks before we can be approved to adopt.

I know this is a very quick intro. Please keep checking back to because I’ll post more on our diagnoses and what they mean for us, as well as challenges we’re facing with doctors and insurances. If you’ve got any specific questions, please leave them in the comments. I’d love to answer them for you!

Have you gone through fertility treatments or adoption? What were your biggest struggles and how did you get through them?

Between tracking ovulation and undergoing treatments, trying to conceive can be a strenuous and stressful situation, especially if you aren’t successful. It can even be so emotionally taxing that women undergoing the process can even develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In a recent study, researchers surveyed 142 people who had undergone fertility treatments. Of the participants, 46 percent met the criteria for PTSD, meaning they could be diagnosed with the condition. Compared to the eight percent of the general population that suffers from PTSD, that’s quite a jump. Some of the common symptoms were feeling upset at reminders of their infertility, such as seeing commercials for baby diapers, feeling distant or cut off from people, or feeling hopeless.

The study’s lead researcher, Allyson Bradow, hopes this leads to a change in definition for PTSD and more discussion about the issue.

“The definition of trauma should be expanded to include expectations of life,” said Bradow, who went through fertility treatments herself. “Having children, expanding your family, carrying on your genetic code — that’s an instinctual drive that we have as human beings. And when that is being threatened, it’s not necessarily your life being threatened, but your expectation of what your life can be or should be like.”

Bradow believes that anyone undergoing fertility should be required to attend counseling. After all, the stress of infertility takes a psychological toll as well as a physical.

Do you think women who are trying to conceive should be provided therapy?

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If you’re thinking about going through fertility treatments, you might need to do it multiple times to actually conceive. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that women in their 30s and 40s who had fertility treatments were as likely to deliver babies as women who conceived naturally — it just sometimes takes repeated cycles of the the fertility procedure. Researchers looked at all IVF cycles together, rather than the live birth rate after one treatment cycle. By adding those together, they found that there is hope for women undergoing multiple treatments.

The study looked at 246,740 women who went through assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment between 2004 and 2009. Of the women, 57 percent of them gave birth through treatment and 30 percent of all ART cycles resulted in a live birth. Researchers took into account factors like age and quality of embryos.

For women under 31 who went through ART, the birth rate was 42 percent for the first cycle and the by the fourth cycle, the rate was 66-83 percent. For women 43 and older, the birth rate using her own embryos was 4 percent for the fourth cycle and 7-15 percent for the fourth cycle. If older women used donor eggs, they would have a significantly greater chance of having a live birth.  Researchers said the the chances of conceiving naturally are 45 percent for the first month, 65 percent at the six-month mark and 85 percent at a year.

Would you undergo multiple fertility treatments? What do you think of these findings?

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Fertility drugs will help you get pregnant faster, but they also might make your children shorter. A new study presented at The Endocrine Society’s Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas, found that of babies born full term, those that were conceived through fertility drugs were a little bit shorter than naturally conceived children, but were overall healthy.

Experts in this study wanted to see the difference between mothers who used fertility drugs and those who had undergone fertility treatments like IVF. Previous studies have shown that IVF children were actually taller than naturally-conceived children. This time around, the researchers looked at 84 children conceived with the help of fertility drugs and 258 children who were conceived naturally — all of them were born full term. It was found that the kids conceived through fertility drugs were an average of two centimeters shorter — even when the researchers took parents’ height into consideration. They also found that the height difference was greater in boys than it was in girls.

Researchers are still unsure what could be the cause of these findings and need to investigate further.

Do you think fertility drugs could affect height? Is having a tall kid important to you?

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Lesley Brown, the first woman to successfully undergo IVF treatment, died at age 64 on June 6^th. Lesley gave birth to the first IVF baby, her daughter Louise, in July 1978. She had another daughter, Natalie, via IVF a few years later. Louise spoke to The Telegraph  about her mother saying, “Mum was a very quiet and private person who ended up in the world spotlight because she wanted a family so much. We are all missing her terribly.”

Louise’s birth helped pave the way for more successful IVF treatments and procedures for other people who’ve wanted families just as badly. And for that, we remember her fondly.

Has IVF touched your life? If so, tell us how.

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We reported on a study back in January that women who get three or more embryos implanted during IVF  didn’t have a higher chance of getting pregnant than women who only had one or two implanted. In fact, the birth rates for those women with multiple embryos implanted were lower than those who had just one. Now, it looks like more people are going that way — implanting single embryos, which reduces the rate of multiple births.

According to TODAY Moms, more women are opting for single-embryo transplants because of lower pregnancy health risks and technological advancements that have made them almost as effective as multiple-embryo transplants. While many clinics are seeing that their patients are transferring single embryos, at other clinics, patients are very skeptical and don’t want to go through another IVF cycle (it’s expensive and invasive). Many fertility experts at clinics are working with their patients to explain the risks for baby and mom when there’s a multiple embryo transfer — both during pregnancy and after birth. Also, clinics are making sure that the healthiest embryo is transplanted, giving women a higher chance at conceiving.

What do you think of single-embryo transplants? If you were to do IVF, would you try more than one transplant at a time or stick with just one?

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Babies born through fertility treatments after their fathers died might not be able to get benefits from the Social Security Administration. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that each state has the power to determine whether the child can receive benefits or not. According to TIME, the ruling came from the case of Astrue v. Capato where a set of twins conceived through frozen sperm after the death of their father. The court decided that the children could not get Social Security survivor benefits based on the laws of their home state, Florida.

New research shows that babies conceived with the help of fertility treatments might be more likely to develop birth defects. According to an Australian study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, experts found that there was an 8.3 percent birth defect risk for babies whose parents use fertility treatments compared to the 5.8 percent risk for babies conceived without help. Researchers analyzed the South Australian registry of over 300,000 babies conceived naturally and over 6,000 conceived with fertility treatments between 1986 to 2002. They found that there was 7.2 percent birth defect risk in babies born through IVF and a 9.9 percent risk for babies born through intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). There was also an increased risk with the use of Clomid as well.

Before you freak out, know that there’s also good news for people undergoing fertility treatments. Researchers found that after they accounted for other factors like smoking or the mother’s age, the risks associated with IVF and other fertility treatments weren’t as significant (the risk associated with ICSI did remained high.) Experts suggest that people who are undergoing fertility treatments can lower their child’s birth defect risk by using IVF without ICSI and freezing their embryos.

What do you think of these findings? Are you worried about your baby’s birth defect risks?

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