FAQs

You fill in the patient registration form and a member of our administrative team will be in touch with information about our services, a health questionnaire and available appointments. You can call us on 02033148386 or email us at enquiries@bridgeclinic.london and we will get back to you within 24 hours. Thereafter, you will be able to communicate with us regularly via our patient portal.

See our Price list for all fertility treatments here

Being flexible with our opening times is vital for our patients at Bridge Clinic London. We always aim to see you at times convenient to you. Our current opening times are shown on our website . We will arrange it so that see the most appropriate member of our team for your needs.

If you are a heterosexual couple who has been trying to get pregnant for over 2 years you should consider IVF. If you are a woman over 35, you should consider IVF even if you have been trying for less than 2 years. IVF is also recommended for heterosexual couples if the Fallopian tubes are blocked or if sperm abnormalities have been discovered. Single women and same sex female couples will sometimes require IVF treatment with donor sperm to conceive as well.

The first step before you embark on fertility treatment will be to have some fertility tests, including a blood test, an assessment scan and a sperm analysis if it is required. The first consultation with one of our clinicians can be done on the same day of the tests, after which if you wish to proceed we will be able to plan for your treatment. If you have had previous investigations we will ask you to send us these results in advance so that we can review them before the consultation.

Yes, we can provide treatment with known and unknown sperm donors. During your initial consultation, you may discuss the option of using donor sperm for treatment. Donor sperm is used in a variety of cases, such as for single women, same sex couples and heterosexual couples where the male partner does not produce sperm.

If you have a friend or a family member who wishes to donate sperm for your treatment, we can assess their suitability and store their sperm for your treatment

If you wish to have treatment with an unknown sperm donor, one of our clinical embryologists can guide you through the process of finding a sperm donor through a donor sperm bank or recruiting your own sperm donor. At the moment we have agreements with the European Sperm Bank, Fairfax, with Cryos International and with the London Sperm Bank.

When visiting the websites for the above donor sperm banks, you will see donors with various characteristics you can choose from. If you have any questions about this process, we will be happy to answer any questions at any point.

It is worth noting that donor sperm from outside the UK must be compliant with the HFEA regulatory body, so each bank will specify which donors are suitable for treatment within the UK or have a selection of donors that fall under this category.

We are planning to provide egg donor treatment from October 2023.

Our pricing is transparent to avoid any unexpected costs. We charge the same for IVF and ICSI and our price includes the cost of embryo freezing and one year storage. The only additional cost will be for medications, if required, which will be paid directly to the pharmacy Chemist 4U at a very competitive price.

If you are registered with us, the best way to contact us is via the patient portal. If you are contacting us for the first time, you can find more details here

At Bridge Clinic, we want to offer safe treatment that is realistic, fair and evidence based. For this reason, there are some tests and assessments we have to perform before we can offer treatment and we will discuss these with you in your consultations.

Female patients who are older than 45 are advised to seek treatment with egg donation.

Yes you can. We are seeing an increased success rate in women over 40. Even though there is an age related decline in female fertility and the success rates are much higher in younger women, many women over 40 still achieve pregnancy with IVF. However, in some cases women with reduced ovarian reserve may need treatment with donated eggs.

We do encourage patients to have a healthy BMI within the 19-35 range before starting treatment, to give you the best possible chance of success as well as safe care. Research has shown that a healthy BMI can support your fertility treatment, so we encourage you to optimise your BMI and lower it if it is over 30. If you’re struggling to work out your BMI, try this handy online BMI calculator or this is something our medical experts can discuss with you on a fertility assessment in your full health check.

This is called secondary infertility – the inability to have a second or third child despite have a successful pregnancy before – is not uncommon. Your age could also be a factor, and it might take a bit longer to get pregnant than the first time. Remember that fertility starts to decline from age 30 onwards and even more so from age 35. But if you think you need fertility help, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Throughout treatment the multidisciplinary team will give you all the support that you need. The clinical and embryology teams are here to treat you and answer all your questions and we also offer the support of our specialised fertility counsellors at any stage during your treatment.

The patient will have ovarian stimulation, just like in an IVF or ICSI cycle and the eggs will be collected at the point when the follicles in the ovaries reach a certain size. On average 80% of the eggs collected are mature and these are the ones that can be frozen. When the patient is ready to use these eggs, they can be thawed and injected with sperm using ICSI, so that one or two of the embryos created can be transferred to attempt for a pregnancy. Any remaining good quality embryos can be frozen after the embryo transfer for future use.

We use a technique called vitrification for freezing eggs, which gives very good survival rates.

Sperm can be frozen for patients about to undergo treatment that might stop them producing sperm, like chemotherapy, gender reassignment, etc. In other cases, men who might have difficulty producing a sample on the day or treatment might choose to freeze a back up sample. Sometimes men choose to freeze some sperm before having a vasectomy in case they change their mind and might want to have children in the future.

There are two main types of PGT

Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidies (PGT-A), is a procedure that checks for the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes in embryos before the embryo transfer in IVF or ICSI.

Preimplantation genetic testing for monogenic disorders (PGT-M) and Preimplantation genetic testing for structural rearrangements (PGT-SR) These treatments can be used by people who have a serious inherited disease in their family to avoid passing it onto their children. In these cases the specific condition is tested for in a small group of cells that are removed from each embryo (embryo biopsy).

At the moment we are not offering this service but we might offer it in the future.