Fertility and Reproductive Health Services Now Offered

For Release: February 23, 2015

STANFORD, Calif. — For three decades, Stanford Medicine’s Fertility and Reproductive Health team has provided comprehensive, caring services to patients who want to expand their families. Now, the team offers a close new tie to the hospital that delivers many of their patients’ babies after successful fertility treatment. As of February 2015, the team has moved to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.

“The health of your baby starts before you get pregnant, and we are a natural part of that continuum,” said Valerie Baker, MD, medical director of Fertility and Reproductive Health Services and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “Starting out strong sets the framework for a healthy life.”

“This move is really a natural fit with the hospital’s ‘Start Strong’ campaign for healthy pregnancies and babies,” said Barry Behr, PhD, director of Stanford’s in vitro fertilization laboratory and co-director of Fertility and Reproductive Health Services. The hospital is already home to superb obstetric, labor and delivery, and newborn care at its Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services, he noted.

Baker, Behr and their colleagues can address males’, females’ and couples’ sources of infertility, offering the expertise of gynecologists and urologists who specialize in fertility; infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination; genetic counseling and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos for couples who face risks of genetic disease; help with emotional concerns related to fertility and reproductive health; and referrals to other Stanford specialists as needed.

The team also offers unusual expertise in a number of specific fertility problems. For instance, its program in recurrent pregnancy loss provides consultation with rheumatology, genetics and maternal-fetal medicine specialists who can care for women who have experienced multiple miscarriages. The program in primary ovarian insufficiency assists women whose supply of eggs has run out prematurely, while the fertility preservation program provides treatment for women who need cancer chemotherapy that may endanger their fertility.

“Because we are part of a major medical institution, we have all the resources to address anything unexpected that arises,” said Behr, who is also professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the School of Medicine. The team’s move from Stanford Health Care to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford will help patients make a seamless transition from fertility care to obstetrics, as well as allowing better integration with the hospital’s pediatricians and with its medical genetics team, which is knowledgeable in genetic diseases that affect children.

The Fertility and Reproductive Health team also has a long history of helping patients take advantage of new scientific findings and evidence-based treatments in reproductive health, many of which are generated by faculty of the School of Medicine. 

“We are uniquely positioned to offer a really comprehensive approach to helping couples fulfill their desires for a family,” Baker concluded. “In addition, many of us have been through fertility treatment ourselves, so we realize this is not an easy thing for patients to go through. We value being able to help people through a hard time, as well as celebrating with them when they have the joy of a healthy pregnancy.”

Authors

Samantha Dorman
(650) 498-7056
sdorman@stanfordchildrens.org