Fertility Treatments and Services

Our andrology (male reproduction) laboratory is equipped with advanced technology to help us study your sperm and boost your sperm’s ability to fertilize an egg. We use the following groundbreaking methods to increase your fertility:

• CASA (Computer Assisted Semen Analyzer) and CEROS (Computer Assisted Sperm Analyzer)—advanced equipment that analyzes semen and washes sperm. Washing sperm simply means that we separate out healthy, swimming sperm from semen to increase your chances for fertilization.
• Strict Kruger morphology—a proven way to evaluate sperm characteristics and predict their ability to fertilize an egg.
• Sperm cryopreservation—the freezing and storing of sperm for future use. (Long-term storage arrangements must be made with a cryobank.)

Our endocrine laboratory empowers us to study how your endocrine, or hormonal system, functions. We analyze your reproductive hormones with advanced technology (AIA 2000) that provides reliable, quick results, often within one day.

Our Fertility preservation services help you maintain the option of having children in the future. Our egg, embryo, and sperm cryopreservation banking services safely freeze and store your tissues until you are ready to use them. If you received a cancer diagnosis, you could benefit from a fertility preservation consultation as cancer treatments can harm your reproductive system. The same is true if you are undergoing gender-affirmation treatments.

We offer many options for fertility preservation, including:

• Egg banking
• Embryo banking
• Ovarian tissue banking
• Ovarian suppression
• Sperm banking
• Testicular tissue banking

Learn more about our fertility preservation services

Men play an equal role as women in a couple’s fertility. It’s important to be evaluated by a doctor who specializes in male fertility—in other words, a reproductive urologist. Our comprehensive male fertility evaluations give our reproductive urologists insight into the health of your sperm and semen. We look at the volume of your semen, how many sperm you have, their shape, and how well they move. A part of our consultation is suggesting ways to optimize your sperm production. We can also prepare your sperm for intrauterine insemination, if requested.

Learn more about our fertility services for men

If you are a patient and seeking additional information about preconception and preimplantation genetic testing options to learn more about your genetic makeup before you conceive, we recommend seeing our genetic counselors. They are specially trained in fertility and reproductive health and can help you understand and adapt to the medical and psychological impacts of genetic diseases that may run in your family. Our genetic counselors break down your genetic testing options and results into understandable language and help answer the question of whether or not the disease will occur or reoccur, empowering you to make informed decisions.   

Learn more about our genetic counseling

Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is often one of the first treatments women ask about when it comes to fertility treatments. In this procedure, we start with a medication that stimulates the growth of your eggs, then we use a catheter to inject sperm into your uterus. IUI increases your chances of fertilization because the number of sperm are increased and they have quick access to the egg.

Learn more about intrauterine insemination (IUI)

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is one of the most common and effective types of assisted reproductive technologies (fertility treatments) available. IVF involves fertilizing an egg outside the body in a laboratory dish and then implanting it in your uterus. With us, you have access to the latest technology and an entire team of Stanford doctors who specialize in reproductive health and fertility. We determine the predicted chances of IFV success based on your unique situation and we work closely with you to help increase your chances of building a family.

Learn more about in vitro fertilization (IVF)

The Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Health In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Lab provides new and better ways to help you and your partner become parents by enhancing IVF with research-driven options. Our physician-researchers are on the leading edge of reproductive medicine, including IVF, applying the latest discoveries to improve your chances of conceiving. 

Our services include:

• The care of gametes (sperm and eggs) once they have been collected.
• Tools for fertilization (the joining of a sperm and an egg) to increase the chances of success, including intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), the injection of sperm into single eggs, and more.
• Genetic testing on embryos to prevent certain genetic conditions from occurring.
• State-of-the-art technologies to help choose the best gametes.
• Freezing gametes and embryos and storing them in cryogenic tanks for those who need to save them for later use, including cancer, gender-nonconforming and LGBTQ patients.

Learn more about our IVF Lab

We offer many options for LGBTQ+ individuals who want to build their families in our Q+ Family Building clinic. These include but are not limited to:

• Intrauterine insemination (IUI) with donor sperm.
• Gestational carrier (aka surrogate) with donor eggs.
• Reciprocal in vitro fertilization (IVF) when one individual supplies eggs (retrieved by IVF) and another individual carries the pregnancy.
• Egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation), embryo banking, and ovarian tissue banking.
• Sperm freezing and testicular tissue preservation.
• Individualized family building treatment plans before, after, and during gender-affirming hormone therapy.

Learn more about our Q+ Family Building clinic

In order to enhance the release of your eggs, we use medicines to stimulate follicles in your ovaries in a process called ovulation induction. It results in the release of multiple eggs in one cycle to increase your chances of fertilization. This can be beneficial for women with fertility disorders such as PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) which is a hormone disorder.

Learn more about ovulation induction

By innovatively testing embryos before they are implanted (called preimplantation testing), we can determine if the embryo carries a mutated gene. When you have multiple embryos to choose from, as with in vitro fertilization (IVF), we can select the healthiest embryo for transfer. This process is called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and it can significantly reduce the chances of having an affected child by a common genetic syndrome. It is typically done for individuals/couples who do not have difficulty conceiving but who know they are at risk for a genetic disease (due to a family member who has the disease, but some patients may be silent carriers).

Preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) is done on patients who do not carry a known disease-causing mutation, unlike PGD.

PGS can give you the opportunity to reduce your chances of chromosomal imbalance, which could lead to miscarriage, or a baby with an extra or missing chromosome (such as with Down’s syndrome). As women age, their eggs are at a higher risk of carrying a missing or extra chromosome. Preimplantation genetic screening is also called comprehensive chromosome screening (CCS) because it can include all 24 chromosomes. PGS can be performed in conjunction with an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle in any couple, but it is typically considered in patients where the female partner is over 35 years of age. An additional benefit of PGS is that it improves our ability to choose the healthier embryos to implant. This will help us achieve a high success rate with a single embryo transfer and can reduce the risks of twin pregnancies.

The Stanford Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Health team takes an innovative, all-encompassing approach to help you overcome repeat miscarriages or pregnancy loss. Understanding pregnancy loss is a research focus of ours. By researching the latest care options, we open doors to you to explore new care options. Multiple specialists come together to optimize your overall health before you even conceive, with the goal of giving you the best chances for a successful, sustained pregnancy. 

Learn more about our Recurrent Pregnancy Loss program

Our Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) Lab is here to pinpoint the exact reason for your or your partner’s infertility. Our experienced laboratory team of technologists and phlebotomists are highly specialized in the field of reproductive technology.

In our advanced accredited lab (by the State of California), we provide testing for various hormone issues, endometriosis, amenorrhea (lack of menstruation), uterine fibroids, ovulation problems, semen and sperm analysis, and more. We offer comprehensive services for both women and men, and we are a licensed tissue bank.

Our laboratory staff will work with you closely to provide you with the best patient care.

We offer a comprehensive list of reproductive surgeries to correct disorders of the reproductive system. Sometimes, a simple surgery is all it takes to resolve your fertility issue. Many of our surgeries are minimally-invasive, meaning that they can be done in a day or during a short hospital stay with minimal scarring and a quick recovery.

Learn more about reproductive surgeries

If necessary, we can offer monitoring services such as pelvic ultrasounds for follicular monitoring and laboratory testing to you, even if you are not a Stanford Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Health patient. We sometimes receive these requests from patients when their work location, travel destination, or proximity to our clinic during their treatment makes it more convenient or easier for them to continue with their fertility treatment as recommended by their selected provider.

Learn more about supplemental patient monitoring services

Third party reproduction means that a third person (either known or anonymous) helps a couple achieve pregnancy. Our Stanford Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Health programs is one of the largest in the Bay Area. We offer egg donation and in vitro fertilization (IVF) with a gestational carrier as ways to achieve pregnancy. Our team of experts will work with donor agencies to help you identify the anonymous donor who will best suit your needs and/or with a donor who is known to you prior to starting your treatment. The same is true of our Gestational Carrier program.