The pill can help increase fertility

TEL AVIV , Israel, March 25 (UPI) -- The pill that prevents pregnancy can also help women undergoing invitro fertilization to conceive, an Israeli study says.

Researchers find that a two-week intervention treatment using a standard low-dose birth control pill can help in timing the harvesting of eggs and make invitro fertilization less stressful and more convenient for the doctor as well as the patient.

"One of the main drawbacks in treating infertility is timing a woman's body with the clinic's schedule, so we can get as many mature eggs as possible. Invitro fertilization clinics can be extremely busy," study leader Dr. Haim Pinkus of the Rabin Medical Center and Tel Aviv University Sackler School of Medicine said in a statement. "With a proven and safe method for timing when a woman can undergo therapy, there is a lot less stress placed on the physicians' shoulders too."

The study of 1,800 women, published in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction & Genetics, is not the first to investigate the use of the pill in invitro fertilization, but it is the largest one. It also was the first to emphasize the impact of a patient's age, her ovarian response, the characteristics of her cycle, and a birth as the final outcome.