Does IVF cause premature menopause ?

Many women worry that going through IVF will deplete their ovarian reserve , as a result of which they will run out of eggs , reduce their long-term fertility, and reach the menopause earlier. Logically, this makes sense  ! We all know that women are born with a certain number of eggs ; and that their ovaries do not produce any new eggs after birth. If the doctor stimulates the ovaries to grow lots of eggs during the IVF treatment by giving hormonal injections, won’t this mean that there’ll be fewer eggs left in the ovaries after the IVF treatment – especially if they are doing many IVF cycles ? When going through IVF , the doctor harvests several eggs at the time of egg retrieval by stimulating the ovaries with hormones (FSH or a combination of FSH and LH). A woman with a menstrual cycle length of 28 days ovulates only 12 eggs per year. But women going through IVF produce 15 or more eggs at a time. Doesn’t  this mean that IVF depletes the egg reserve faster than usual and can lead to earlier menopause ? Let’s look at the facts. The ovaries are a pair of organs situated in the pelvic region of women, one on each side. They act as the reservoir for our eggs. Eggs are the cells which carry half of the information (genetic blue print) necessary for creating a baby. Such precious egg cells are stored, nourished and protected within specialized structures in ovaries called follicles.  A female foetus at around 18-22 weeks of gestation contains about 2,0...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Tags: Health In vitro fertilisation ivf Follicle-stimulating hormone FSH Menstrual cycle Infertility Menopause Source Type: blogs