Fertility treatment in Turkey

Fertility treatment in Turkey means IVF, ICSI and their variations, embryo genetic testing for medical reasons, and egg freezing in defined circumstances, carried out in licensed assisted reproduction centres for married couples using their own eggs and sperm. That last clause is the one to read twice. Turkish law does not permit egg, sperm or embryo donation, surrogacy, or the selection of a baby's sex for anything other than avoiding a serious inherited disease. If a clinic offers you a donor cycle in Turkey, it is either not in Turkey or not legal, and neither is a place to start a pregnancy.

Within those limits the country has a large number of centres, experienced embryology laboratories and prices well below Western Europe and North America. This page explains which treatment fits which problem, how to read the figures clinics quote, what a cycle involves when you live abroad, who Turkey is not the right country for, and what a quote for fertility treatment should contain.

Ask every clinic for the same thing: live births per cycle started, by the woman's age band, using the couple's own eggs, for the most recent complete year. That is the only figure that can be compared across clinics, and even then it is not a prediction for you. Pregnancy per transfer, fertilisation rates and blastocyst rates are laboratory measures that say nothing about babies.

Cumulative figures, meaning the chance of a birth after all the embryos from one collection have been used, are more useful than single-transfer figures and are the honest basis for planning how many cycles you might need and what they will cost. A clinic that will not give you its figures in this form has told you something.

• Ovarian hyperstimulation. Swollen ovaries and fluid shifts after stimulation; usually mild, occasionally serious enough for admission. Freeze-all strategies reduce the risk.
• Multiple pregnancy. The main avoidable risk of IVF, which is why single embryo transfer is the rule. Twins mean prematurity and complications for mother and babies.
• Procedure risks. Bleeding, infection or injury at egg collection; rare, but real.
• Ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage. IVF pregnancies carry the same or slightly higher risks than natural ones, rising with age.
• Emotional and financial strain. Cycles fail more often than they succeed at many ages. Plan for more than one, emotionally and financially, before starting.
• Travel-specific risks. Flying soon after collection while bloated, managing injections and refrigerated drugs in transit, and complications arising after you have gone home.
• Add-on costs without benefit. Money spent on unproven extras is money not available for a further cycle.

• Check the licence. Assisted reproduction centres are licensed and inspected by the Ministry of Health. Ask for the licence, not for awards.
• Ask who the embryologists are. The laboratory decides more than the consulting room. How many cycles a year, who leads the lab, what its quality system is.
• Ask for figures in the comparable form. Live births per cycle started, by age band, own eggs, most recent complete year.
• Ask what is an add-on and what the evidence is. Expect honest answers about time-lapse, glue, scratching, PRP and IMSI. Evasion is an answer too.
• Ask how care continues at home. Who manages monitoring before you travel, and who manages the pregnancy test, early scans and any complication afterwards.
• Ask about documents. Marriage certificate, translated and where required apostilled, and the consents you will sign.

• Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Health, regulation on assisted reproductive treatment practices and centres.
• Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, treatment add-ons ratings and patient guidance on understanding clinic figures.
• European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, patient information on assisted reproduction and cross-border reproductive care.
• Cochrane Library, reviews on intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection and on preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy.
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, guideline on fertility problems: assessment and treatment.