Discouraging, isolating and capable of damaging even the strongest of relationships, infertility can threaten the dream of building a family. When fertility issues persist, women throughout the area and, in fact, from around the world find the solutions they seek through Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey (RMANJ).
RMANJ, which has 10 fertility clinics throughout New Jersey including Hamilton, Freehold and Marlton, offers comprehensive fertility treatment in a comfortable, state-of-the-art setting. The practice’s team of physicians, nurses and other professionals offer patients a broad scope of treatment options and choices in care, including a highly successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) program. As part of its complete wellness care, RMANJ offers complementary services such as nutritional counseling, yoga and online support groups, all designed to create a positive experience—in every sense of the word—for women looking to add to their families.
“I feel privileged to work at RMANJ,” says Thomas A. Molinaro, M.D., MSCE, FACOG, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, obstetrician and gynecologist, as well as clinical assistant professor for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “We are uniquely devoted to research and education as a foundation for improving conception rates for patients. Our motto is to do the right thing for the patient, and that involves doing everything we can to better understand what causes infertility and how to treat it. In part because of the things we’re doing here, fertility treatment is vastly different than it was just two years ago, and it will be different two years from now. We’re doing things here we never thought possible.
“A third of our patients are from outside of the state [of New Jersey], and many are from outside the country—Europe, Asia, South America, Canada, the Middle East,” he continues. “We have one patient here at our facility in Basking Ridge who is from Russia. She first came to us in 2013 because she had trouble getting pregnant there. We got her pregnant, and now she’s working on getting pregnant with her second child.”
Although all patients who walk through the door share a common goal, each patient is treated uniquely, based on her individual circumstances. Some women may require simpler treatment, such as carefully prescribed fertility medication, whereas others will be best served by cycles of IVF, which is the process of fertilization by manually combining an egg and sperm and then transferring the viable embryo to the uterus. RMANJ, for its part, enjoys a 65 percent delivery rate among IVF patients under the age of 35, which is among the highest in the nation.
“This is an exciting place,” offers Daniel J. Kaser, M.D., FACOG, who sees patients at both the Hamilton and Marlton offices. “It has one of the biggest research initiatives in the field and has a fellowship program training the next generation of reproductive endocrinologists—one of only 43 in the U.S. What I love most about this place is that it’s not afraid to innovate. Our IVF success rates, which are well above the U.S. average, reflect that commitment to innovation and doing our best for every patient.”
Making Miracles
Years ago, women relied on their primary care physician or OB/GYN to determine when it was time to meet with a fertility specialist. These days, more and more women are “taking charge of their own health” by becoming more self-educated, according to Melissa C. Yih, M.D., FACOG, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, obstetrician and gynecologist. She joined the practice last year, when RMANJ acquired her former practice, IVF New Jersey Fertility and Gynecology Center.
“For a woman under the age of 35 who has been trying to conceive for a year, it’s probably not a bad idea to do some basic testing,” she says. “The same thing applies to someone who’s 35 to 40 and has been trying six months without success. And for women over the age of 40, if you have been trying for three months and haven’t been able to conceive, at least let’s get a sense of what’s going on, because maybe the husband has no sperm or the fallopian tubes are blocked. In the case of someone 40 or older, there is a biological clock; you don’t want to panic, but you don’t want to waste time either.”
To improve a woman’s chances for success, RMANJ has developed a 24-chromosome screening process called SelectCCS, which safely screens an embryo to determine whether it has a normal or abnormal number of chromosomes. Considering recent data, which suggests as many as 70 percent of miscarriages are due to embryos with too few or too many chromosomes, the use of sophisticated screening technologies such as SelectCCS during the embryo-selection process can improve the efficacy of an IVF cycle.
Complementary technologies such as single embryo transfer (SET) are helping RMANJ redefine—and refine—the IVF experience. SET essentially enables an RMANJ physician to place a single viable embryo, vetted through SelectCCS, to increase the likelihood of a full-term pregnancy with fewer complications. Previously, physicians would have placed multiple embryos to improve a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant but, in the process, also increasing the likelihood of a more complicated pregnancy.
“Our goal is to get the patient pregnant with a healthy embryo as soon as possible in order to reach her goal—a healthy baby—without wasting time,” says Dr. Yih. “With SET, because the likelihood of a pregnancy is higher, we can put back fewer embryos; instead of putting back two embryos, we can put back one and still have equal success while also reducing the risk of twins. Some people might want twins, but with twin pregnancies, there’s also a higher risk.
“Now, with genetic testing and vitrification [cryopreservation, or freezing embryos], we have those embryos available for future use,” she continues. “That’s important especially for older pregnancies. Once you’re over 40, the chance of having a genetically abnormal embryo goes up significantly. But if a woman has her embryos frozen, it takes the pressure off. She essentially has frozen her fertility in time.”
Since its founding in 1999, RMANJ’s team of physicians has helped deliver more than 30,000 babies to loving families from across the globe. This includes beneficiaries of Helping Heroes Build Families, a program established in 2012 to provide fertility treatment to U.S. military personnel and their spouses. RMANJ has since provided more than $150,000 in free services to help active-duty military personnel in New Jersey realize the dream of parenthood.
Regardless of the circumstances, each birth has been a miracle, according to Dr. Kaser.
“To tell someone yes, you’re pregnant after months or years of trying is very special,” he says. “Infertility patients often feel a loss of control. We give it back to them by offering options like IVF, SelectCCS, egg freezing and acupuncture, and it gives them a chance to take control again. Offering success in the shortest time necessary is at the core of what we do.”
To find an office, set up an appointment or learn more about Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, call 973-656-2089 or visit www.rmanj.com.
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life Magazine, December, 2016.
