COVID-19: What if I'm quarantined during my IVF cycle?
COVID-19 could result in not just having to work from home but disruptions in your IVF cycle. Image by Avel Chuklanov via Unsplash.
[This article deals with a rapidly developing situation. It was written by Norbert Gleicher, MD, on March 12, 2020 and published on March 13, 2020. For information on New York State's quarantine requirements for patients coming to New York for medical procedures, please read this guide.]
This is an excellent question because this is exactly what happened at one IVF center in the larger New York City Tristate area just a few days ago. The center, affiliated with a hospital, based on hospital policy, had to cancel the patient’s cycle imminently before retrieval because the risk to other patients and staff from going through with the retrieval was considered too substantial.
CHR would, likely, have reached the same conclusion, though difficult decisions like this at CHR are handled on a strictly individualized basis by an administrative Executive Emergency Committee, consisting of senior administrative, embryology and physician staff. At the present time, circumstances are still too much in flux and too unpredictable to set rigid rules that would cover every possible situation. Individualized care is, and will remain, CHR’s mantra, even in such extraordinary circumstances.
If a cycle must be interrupted in mid-cycle, in most cases all it takes is to discontinue medications. In a small minority of cases, mostly only in women who are developing a very large number of follicles (not a frequent finding in most CHR patients), there may be risk of developing the so-called Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHHS). In such cases, you may be prescribed some medication and CHR will make sure it is delivered to you.
In short, we will have your back!
CHR's COVID-19 Bulletins
This is a part of the March 2020 CHR VOICE.
Norbert Gleicher, MD, FACOG, FACS
Norbert Gleicher, MD, leads CHR’s clinical and research efforts as Medical Director and Chief Scientist. A world-renowned specialist in reproductive endocrinology, Dr. Gleicher has published hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and lectured globally while keeping an active clinical career focused on ovarian aging, immunological issues and other difficult cases of infertility.
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