Three People to Make a Baby? It’s Not Science Fiction…How IVF is Rapidly Changing

By: Dr. Kristen Burris, DAcCHM

What once sounded like wild science fiction is now quietly entering real-world fertility clinics around the world. Science has actualized the concept of using biological material from three individuals to help create one embryo- one baby at a time. On average it takes nine unhealthy eggs in an older woman to make one healthy baby. Read on to understand how this is happening and where. 

This emerging technologically advanced IVF approach, often referred to in the media as “three-person IVF”, is not about three parents raising a child. Instead, it reflects a highly technical IVF intervention aimed at improving egg quality, particularly in couples who have experienced repeated IVF failure or repeated miscarriages. 

IVF clinics throughout the world are using this technology:  Cyprus, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Dubai have begun offering variations of these advanced techniques, often to patients who feel they have exhausted all of their fertility options elsewhere. We know one local couple who had 10, yes TEN IVF transfers to finally get one, healthy baby boy. If this technology had been available, I wonder if they would have chosen a different IVF center and a different path.

We have had a patient go to the IVF clinic in Cyprus for a different procedure as a surrogate and she thought the doctor and the facility were very professional and would recommend them to a prospective patient or couple. We have other patients who are currently in the process of working with this fertility intervention in Dubai and yet another considering this option in Mexico. 

Although the technology is evolving rapidly, one critical truth remains:

Advanced IVF does not replace the need to understand why fertility or the ability to stay pregnant is a struggle in the first place. It also raises ethical questions about medicine and gets many people pretty fired up about their religious or personal opinions. 

What In The World Does “Three People to Make a Baby” Actually Mean?

At the heart of this often heated discussion is a procedure called cytoplasmic transfer (also known as ooplasmic or mitochondrial transfer).

Here is what is happening within the technical side of the clinic:

  • The mother provides nuclear DNA (the majority of genetic material) through using fertility drugs and a surgery to have an egg retrieval. The goal is to have surgically removed a minimum of nine eggs, no matter their quality from the intended mother.  

  • The intended father provides sperm DNA through ejaculation

  • A female donor provides cytoplasm, which contains mitochondria—the energy source of her egg. This is done through using fertility drugs, a surgery for egg retrieval and then they remove most of her DNA. 

Ooplasmic transfer is a novel approach to complex infertility due to recurrent oocyte implantation failure (the last stage of IVF). To stabilize and restore oocyte viability, ooplasm from a healthy donor egg is removed with a micropipette and injected into the oocyte from the infertile intended mother. The combination of the two creates a new oocyte that is then fertilized by ICSI intracytoplasmic sperm injection, that contains mitochondrial DNA from both women and mitochondrial DNA from the man. 

This results in an embryo that contains:

  • Nuclear DNA from both of the intended parents

  • A small amount of mitochondrial DNA from a donor

The goal is not to alter the identity of the baby—but to enhance the functional capacity of the egg, particularly its ability to divide, develop, and form a viable embryo. This is what helps IVF be a success. Without these viable aspects of an egg, IVF often fails. 

Why This Technology Exists

Previously, when couples or individuals were faced with multiple failed IVF cycles or repeated miscarriage and/or the female partner was over 35, IVF doctors would push egg donor on the couple. Egg donor is when you buy eggs from a young, healthy woman who is then fertilized by your husband’s sperm and the embryos that survive the procedure are transferred into the mom. However, there is no genetic aspect of this child that belongs to the mother. This raised a lot of challenges emotionally for the woman and the couple. Now, couples and individuals have an option that they can use their own DNA although their egg quality may be poor, they will have a much higher success in IVF because they use part of another woman’s egg that helps with fertilization and implantation.

This type of intervention is primarily used for patients who are:

  • Are 35 and older

  • Have poor embryo quality

  • Have experienced multiple failed IVF cycles

  • Show signs of mitochondrial dysfunction

  • Have repeated miscarriage with no known explanation or is assumed to be from “poor egg quality”

In simple terms:

If the egg lacks energy, the embryo often fails to develop properly and will die or “arrest” as many like to say.

Cytoplasmic transfer attempts to “boost” that energy system allowing for higher success rates in IVF for couples who have failed time and time again.

The Bigger Question: Why Are So Many Patients Needing This Advanced Technology?

While these scientific technologies are extraordinarily fascinating, they also highlight a deeper issue in modern fertility health:

Why are so many patients reaching the point where this level of intervention is necessary?

In clinical practice, especially in patients over 35, IVF failure is rarely random but it is so common.

However, it is often driven by underlying, unaddressed factors that we can change, influence and actually improve within our practice. No guesswork needed, we test our patients for real data on their bodies and can show them their improvements any time they want. 

The Real Reasons IVF Fails (Especially After 35 for the Female Partner)

1. Declining Egg Quality

  • Reduced mitochondrial function

  • Increased chromosomal abnormalities

  • Impaired cellular energy production

Even the most advanced lab techniques cannot fully override intrinsic egg health, uterine receptivity and hormonal imbalances. And it certainly can’t do anything about stress. The financial weight, the ethical choices, the religious challenges, the travel and the fear it won’t work are huge emotional burdens the person or couple need to unravel before deciding on a way forward. 

2. Hormonal Dysregulation

Patients are frequently placed on:

  • Inappropriate or excessive hormone protocols

  • Continuous hormone exposure without cycling

  • Birth Control for scheduling convenience 

  • Stress Influences Hormone

  • Environment Influences Hormones

  • Toxins Influence Hormones

  • Drugs Influence Hormones

  • Food Quality Influences Hormones

  • Age Influences Hormones and of course, genetics play a role as well.

Hormonal dysregulation can suppress natural hormone signaling within a woman’s body and disrupt ovulation entirely. The number of patients who have missing or irregular cycles after IVF is exorbitant. It is our job to reregulate them and get them ovulating on their own again. 

3. Inflammation & Immune Imbalance

  • Autoimmune activation

  • Implantation resistance

  • Recurrent pregnancy loss

  • Unexplained Pain or Painful Periods

These are often overlooked and under treated in conventional fertility clinics. However, this is at the heart of every evaluation we do at Eagle Acupuncture in Eagle, Idaho surrounded by Meridian,  Boise, Star and Nampa. 

4. Poor Ovarian & Uterine Environment

  • Reduced blood flow

  • Oxidative stress

  • Nutrient deficiencies

  • Age

  • Stealthy Infections (ones the patient is unaware of because they are asymptomatic)

An embryo, your baby, can only be as healthy as the environment in which it develops.

Where Root Cause Medicine At Eagle Acupuncture Changes the Outcome

This is where the work of Dr. Kristen Burris is essential.

Rather than escalating intervention after intervention, our approach focuses on:

Restoring the body’s ability to support pregnancy naturally, at the cellular, hormonal, and emotional level. Checking the male partner as often as the female for imbalances, infections and contributions to failed IVF’s including sperm morphology and DNA fragmentation. 

A Different Approach to Fertility Care

1. Restoring Hormonal Rhythm

  • Supporting natural ovulation

  • Improving cervical mucus

  • Strengthening luteal phase function

  • Thickening Uterine Lining

2. Improving Egg Quality at the Source

  • Enhancing mitochondrial function of the egg

  • Increasing ovarian blood flow

  • Increasing uterine blood flow

  • Reducing oxidative stress

3. Addressing Immune & Inflammatory Drivers

  • Identifying autoimmune contributors

  • Modulating immune reaction

  • Supporting implantation success

  • Reducing miscarriage risk

4. Integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine with Modern Diagnostics Labs and Tests

  • Individually prescribed herbal medicine

  • Personalized Functional Vitamin and Mineral Therapy

  • Functional lab analysis

  • Cycle-specific acupuncture treatments

  • Choosing the best first test

  • Blood Tests

  • Urine Tests

  • Lab work to show systemic improvement

Why This Matters—Even If You Are Pursuing IVF

Quality matters. We can improve quality in both partners and this results in a healthier embryo and less likely to miscarriage. 

Patients who address root cause medicine before or alongside IVF often experience:

  • Improved embryo quality

  • Improved response to fertility drugs

  • Better implantation rates of the embryo

  • Fewer failed IVF cycles

  • Reduced miscarriage risk

  • Less Stress

  • More Positive Outlook on Outcome and Timing

  • Healthier Relationships

And often under our care, they conceive without needing IVF at all.

If you want a baby, even if it is a year from now, prepare. Call us, test now. Don’t wait. There is never a perfect time for a baby. Finances will change. Opportunities will end. Age matters. Sooner is better. 

Cytoplasmic Transfer vs Root Cause Fertility Care

Approach- Cytoplasmic Transfer

What It Does- Enhances egg energy environment

Limitation- Does not correct underlying dysfunction

Approach- Conventional IVF

What It Does- Facilitates fertilization

Limitation- Often overlooks systemic health

Approach- Root Cause Approach

What It Does- Restores physiology

Limitation- Non-surgical approach

A Thoughtful Perspective on the Future of IVF

There is no question that fertility medicine is finally advancing and at a rapid pace.

However, as technology becomes more complex, we must ask ourselves:

Are we solving the fertility problem—or working around it?

Using three biological contributors, three different humans, to create an embryo may improve outcomes in certain cases but what does it mean for our psyche, our future, and our path that could open up more nefarious medical treatments.

The most meaningful improvements in fertility and a woman and a man’s health often come from:

  • Restoring balance

  • Supporting cellular health

  • Correcting underlying dysfunction

  • Balancing emotions

  • Connecting the spirit to the physical body

Final Takeaway

If you want a family, make an appointment. 

If you know anyone who was told they need IVF, they first need an appointment here. 

This is especially urgent if they are:

  • Over 35

  • Already Experiencing failed IVF cycles

  • Struggling with poor embryo quality

  • Have had several miscarriages with natural conception or IVF

Before pursuing more aggressive or experimental interventions, consider a different question:

Has anyone truly evaluated why your body is not supporting pregnancy? Have they looked at your partner’s or husband’s health in this way as well? As we like to say, fertility is a team sport. Focusing on one player will never get you the win. 

Working with a specialist like Dr. Kristen Burris offers a fundamentally different path forward:

Not more complexity—but better biology.

Colin Eggleston