The Hidden Cost of a 70 Percent Failure Rate in Ireland’s One-Cycle IVF Scheme
The HSE fertility hub is where most couples begin their journey through Ireland’s publicly funded fertility system.
You’ve already done what so many never get the chance to do.
You cleared the HSE’s maze of age limits, BMI targets, and referral waiting lists. You survived the blood tests, the consultations, the waiting rooms. You made it all the way to treatment — maybe to egg collection, maybe to embryos, maybe even to transfer.
That’s not small.
That’s persistence in a system designed to filter people out.
The HSE fertility hub pathway is the route couples navigate before reaching this point, but what happens after that referral is rarely explained. The cycle begins, and it reaches its outcome — whether that’s no embryos, an unsuccessful transfer, a clinical pregnancy that doesn’t continue, or a birth. And when that outcome arrives, your position in the system is determined entirely by one thing: whether any embryos remain. If none exist, your funded care ends immediately. If embryos do exist, you stay within the pathway only until those embryos lead to a live birth — or until they run out.
It is only when you see these quiet rules in action that the realisation lands: the system gives you one full cycle to try for a baby — and that cycle has a 70 percent chance of ending without one.
The 70 Percent Reality
When Ireland’s publicly funded IVF pathway launched, it was celebrated as progress — finally, a chance for equality in access.
But hidden beneath the headlines is the harder truth:
One funded round cannot overcome the biology of reproduction, the demands of IVF, or the absence of preparation support.
And that is where the 70 percent reality becomes unavoidable.
Between September 2023 and August 2024, 1,084 couples were referred for publicly funded assisted treatment (IUI, IVF or ICSI). By the time outcomes were reported, only 206 had completed their treatment — and just 79 had a confirmed clinical pregnancy at the 6–8-week scan.
That’s an early pregnancy rate of 38 percent.
But early pregnancy is not a baby.
When you apply the normal drop-off between early pregnancy and live birth — seen across every IVF dataset worldwide — the real-world live-birth outcome from one funded cycle is likely to settle closer to 25 percent.
Which means:
- around 25 percent will take home a baby
- around 75 percent will not
Rounded, this is the 70 percent failure rate — the number that defines the entire scheme.
Not because couples failed.
Not because their embryos failed.
But because the structure of a one-cycle system creates a statistical bottleneck few can overcome.
What the HSE Fertility Hub Doesn’t Explain
The public scheme sounds straightforward:
“One fresh cycle and as many frozen cycles as needed to have a baby.”
In practice, it is far more limited.
If no embryos are created
- There are no frozen cycles
- You are immediately discharged
- There is no funded second attempt
If embryos are created but do not implant
- Frozen transfers are funded
- Only until:
- a live birth occurs, or
- the embryos run out
If a clinical pregnancy occurs but later fails
You remain in the funded pathway only if frozen embryos remain.
Frozen transfers continue until:
- a live birth, or
- no embryos remain
Then discharge occurs.
If a live birth occurs
- You are discharged
- Remaining embryos are stored for two years
- Storage is funded
- Transfers are not funded
- There is no funded sibling route
This is the part of the scheme that most couples never hear until they hit it — and by then, the options are gone.
Why So Many Couples End Up at a Dead End
The scheme offers access —
but not continuity, not preparation, and not a second chance.
Once:
- no embryos are created, or
- embryos are used without resulting in birth, or
- a live birth occurs and embryos remain but transfers aren’t funded
…the system steps back.
And couples realise only then that the “free IVF cycle” was never designed to carry them through whatever comes next.
This is where hope — and embryos — quietly end up on ice.
The Part the HSE Pathway Cannot Reach
IVF success doesn’t begin at egg collection — it’s shaped by what happens throughout the stimulation protocol, and your body’s condition during those four weeks matters.
During this period:
- eggs are completing their final development
- sperm are being continuously regenerated
- metabolic and inflammatory patterns influence treatment response
- nutrient and energy status affect embryo development
- stress, sleep and daily rhythm influence hormonal coordination
These four weeks place specific physiological demands on the body that are not supported within the HSE pathway — yet they strongly shape how a single IVF cycle unfolds.
Once you understand this, continuing to wait within the system is no longer neutral — the four-week preparation window passes, your funded IVF cycle is used, and the physiological conditions shaping outcome cannot be retroactively corrected..
Why the Four Weeks of IVF Matter More Than People Realise
IVF places additional metabolic, inflammatory and energetic demands on the body during the four-week stimulation protocol. These pressures influence how the body manages medication, how eggs complete their final development, how embryos progress in the lab, and the environment they’re transferred into. None of these pressures are addressed within the HSE pathway, yet they contribute to why outcomes vary so widely — and why 70% of funded cycles don’t lead to a baby. Supporting the body through these specific demands helps give a single cycle a stronger foundation.
What IVF-Specific Preparation Actually Looks Like
In the four weeks before IVF, preparation focuses on:
- Supporting the factors that influence optimum embryo yield, for women in their forties, this pressure can feel even greater
- Optimising gut and vaginal microbiome balance for implantation potential
- Supporting physiological balance associated with healthier outcomes in early and late pregnancy
- Strengthening the core foundations the body relies on to maintain a pregnancy
- Supporting sperm quality in ways that contribute to healthier embryo development and long-term offspring wellbeing
This is focused, practical preparation for a medical procedure — helping your body meet the demands of IVF in the best way it can.
IVF Preparation with Now Baby
If you are preparing for an IVF cycle — public or private — this is the final window where nutrition, metabolic balance, inflammation, and stress physiology can still influence how your body responds to treatment.
By the time egg collection takes place, those foundations are already set. The time to start is just before stimulation.
Our IVF Preparation Programme is designed specifically for this pre-cycle window, working alongside clinic care to strengthen the conditions a single cycle depends on.
