Well, it is but you need to make sure it’s not masking something else such as polycystic ovaries. Obviously, the higher the reserve of ovaries, the better because what that means for a woman is that she’s got a greater bank of eggs to work with. If a woman’s got a good, high ovarian reserve at 40, what it means to doctors, if she’s been trying naturally it hasn’t worked, it means that when she goes to IVF and she’s got a good reserve and a good Antral Follicle count – it means that she’s going to produce more eggs that are probably more chromosomally normal that will fertilize, make embryos, so she has a better chance of pregnancy.
Actually, high ovarian reserve is good in young patients but there are some conditions, for example PCOS or Polycystic Ovaries where we will have a lot of eggs in the ovaries and this does not mean it will go better as this particular condition tells us that those eggs, in those ovaries are not developing in the correct hormonal environment.
Therefore, we will have less good quality oocytes. We will have a lot of eggs but many of them will not be good quality.
Generally speaking the higher the ovarian reserve, the more eggs a woman will have in storage within her ovaries. Interestingly some women with polycystic ovarian syndrome have such a high proportion of eggs that they don’t ovulate and therefore their chances of natural conception drops. However, when it comes to treatment they are likely to yield a high number of eggs. In summary, for treatment purposes a high ovarian reserve is generally good, for natural conception, it is not just the ovarian reserve that matters but more so the age of the women.
