Photo by Jeff Newton

SPECIALTY:
REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGIST


How has your field changed since you entered it in 2000?
Success rates for in-vitro fertilization have – in the nine years I’ve been doing this – doubled. Back in early 2000, in general, the best success rates were somewhere in the range of 40 to 50 percent. Now, most of our success rates are 70 to 80 percent. It’s come a long way. Techniques have changed. There are some very outdated techniques, and unfortunately there are some fertility specialists who are still practicing them.

Do you have any advice for couples trying to conceive?
They need to do their due diligence and be educated about which provider they are going to see. Especially in the Valley, there are very big differences in fertility practices – mainly looking at success rates. Fertility centers should be putting their success rates on their Websites. The first thing is to seek care. One out of six couples that are trying to get pregnant are suffering from infertility. If you’re over 35 and have been trying for six months, or if you’re under 35 and have been trying for a year, definitely seek care.

How do you feel about Nadya Suleman, the recent mother of octuplets?
I think it was malpractice. I honestly feel like they should hand the bills over to the fertility guy and say, ‘You’re now financially responsible for the outcome of this pregnancy.’

What do you do to avoid giving women multiple births?
Our success rates have been so good that I’m offering single-embryo transfer – transferring only one embryo to try and reduce the multiples. I don’t even like to see twins. Twins are a side effect of what we do, but my goal is not twins. My goal is a single pregnancy. I see that as the wave of the present, not of the future. We should be striving to do single-embryo transfers on patients. It greatly reduces the risk of having multiple pregnancies with twins down to only 3 percent, versus roughly 35 to 40 percent.

What do you envision for the future of fertility?
The big thing that’s going to be coming forward… has to do with egg freezing. Prior to a year to two years ago, we didn’t have the technology to satisfactorily freeze eggs. We can freeze embryos, which are fertilized eggs. We are now in the process of freezing eggs in our center, and I believe we are the first ones in Arizona to be doing this. This is a service mainly for women who want to protect their reproductive material who may not have met their right man in life yet. That way they can protect their fertility – and their future – by freezing their eggs until they find the right man, even if it’s at 42 or 43.


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