AS OF MARCH of this year, with the opening of The Fertility Institute’s IVF center in Baton Rouge, women and men now have a new option for state-of-the-art assisted reproductive technology in the Gulf South.

Located in Baton Rouge General Medical Center on the Bluebonnet Campus, The Fertility Institute specializes in in vitro fertilization (IVF), controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH), artificial insemination (AIH) and cryopreservation of eggs and embryos.

Fertility specialist and Institute director, Dr. Heber E. Dunaway Jr., who relocated to Baton Rouge from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, says the Institute recognized a demand for services for patients as far as Lafayette and Lake Charles.

“We do more cycles of IVF than any group in the state and probably in the Gulf South,” he says. “We’re the largest group of reproductive specialists in the state of Louisiana, and we felt there was a need in other areas of the state for the kind of fertility success that our group can offer.”

The first IVF or “test tube” baby in the United States was born in 1978. The Fertility Institute’s first IVF patient in 1983 became pregnant and gave birth in 1984. The group has been at the forefront of IVF treatment for more than three decades.

Currently, patients visiting the center can expect state-of-the-art equipment and procedures, from the latest in air handling systems and incubators that increase the success rate of embryos to intracytoplasmic sperm injection for male factor infertility and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.

New patients undergo a complete evaluation and sperm fertility evaluation so that the team can determine the best way to fertilize their eggs. An ovulation induction regimen is then determined for the specific patient’s needs. Multiple ultrasounds determine the growth rate of the egg follicles before patients undergo an egg retrieval procedure. 

“After we retrieve the eggs,” explains
Dr. Dunaway, who did his fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at Baylor College of Medicine, “embryologist Michael Stout, Ph.D., fertilizes the eggs, allowing them to develop for five days before transferring into the uterus.”

While Dr. Dunaway and the Institute have an excellent success rate for IVF overall—resulting in more than 16,000 pregnancies from all forms of fertility treatment—new technologies and procedures are giving potential parents even more hope for reproduction.

In recent months, they have seen a great deal of success when all embryos are frozen and the patient returns for embryo transfer in a subsequent month. Any patient has the option to freeze their embryos and, in the meantime, take hormones to better prepare their lining for implantation.

“A lot of the research being done currently in IVF is not in the lab,” says Dr. Dunaway. “It’s the implantation window that we’re working with; therefore, we are counseling patients, giving them the option to freeze all of their fresh embryos, which is producing a high pregnancy rate when transfer occurs in a subsequent cycle.”

The Institute is the first group in the state to offer the Freeze All process, adding to many historic firsts for Dr. Dunaway himself. He performed the first successful gamete Fallopian transfer in Louisiana in the mid-1980s, the first operative hysteroscopic uterine septoplasty and first successful donor embryo transfer. He is also the second person in the world to successfully perform direct oocyte sperm transfer.

The rate of infertility in the country hasn’t changed much over the years. What has changed is the ability to treat patients and the age that women are bearing children.

“Once a woman reaches age 33 spontaneous pregnancy begins to decline,” he explains. “At age 37 or later, in vitro fertilization is becoming the recommended and cost-effective treatment due to its overall success rate.”

Dr. Dunaway is currently working to give patients even more options to conceive. A survivor of prostate cancer, he is interested in preserving fertility for oncology patients through the freezing process.

After more than 30 years practicing in the reproductive field, Dr. Dunaway is more passionate than ever about helping patients become parents. “It’s been very rewarding for me,” he says. “I love birthing babies, but I like making them better.”

The Fertility Institute  |  225.726.2031  | http://www.fertilityinstitute.com

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