Smoking slashes chances of successful IVF treatment

Smoking can make a woman years older in reproductive terms, and significantly reduce her chances of successful IVF treatment, Dutch researchers claim. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, the researchers looked at 8,457 women aged 20 to 40 who had had IVF treatment. They found that a 30-year-old non-smoker had the same chance of conceiving as a 20-year-old smoker. Couples that have IVF treatment are told that smoking can cut success rates. However, the researchers did not compare all age groups and warned that they could not say if smoking always adds 10 years to a woman's reproductive age, whatever age she actually is.