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Braverman's Dilemma
Locla Doctor Helps Demistify Fertility Problems
April Jimenez 06/16/2005 2:14 am
About 10 years ago, Garden City's Dr. Jeffrey Braverman, a leading fertility expert, began closely investigating patients who'd experienced recurring miscarriages, suspecting their immune systems might be the cause. He was encouraged by what he found.

"The more I studied it, I found a lot of interesting things," Braverman recalls, sitting in his office, the walls speckled with various medical degrees and awards. "Patients' immune systems were attacking the embryo. It is really much more common than people think."

Braverman began to focus on patients with third and fourth miscarriages and couples who continually failed In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) cycles. Teaming up with the California-based Reproductive Immunology Associates' renowned immunological authority, Dr. William Matzner, as well as with Columbia University and the New York Fertility Institute, Braverman and his associates now work together to address common immunological issues and in turn have one of the highest success rates in IVF, according to Braverman.

"Not to toot our own horn, but we are very good at what we do," Braverman jokes.

Braverman adds that not only failure to conceive can be faulted to immunological problems, but miscarriages and stillbirths as well. "Sometimes couples will have one or two children and then miscarry. Pregnancy can trigger immunological problems," he says.

The good news is that most of the common issues are easy to identify and relatively inexpensive to treat. Treatment can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands depending on the how aggressively it needs to be dealt with. Family history plays a large part in potential conception problems. You might be at risk if you have a strong history of strokes, heart attacks and blood clots, or if you have experienced polycystic ovarian syndrome. Also, gestational diabetes and toxemia can be early warning signs for future problems.

"Nobody is guaranteed a baby, but we do the best we can, and people are happy," says Braverman.

Three of Braverman's patients were recently featured on TLC's A Baby Story, a show that chronicles the nine months leading to birth. A fourth and particularly extraordinary story will air in late August. These are the kinds of experiences that make every day and every patient at Braverman's practice a rewarding challenge.

"The best part of my job is I get to assist the couples in achieving their dreams and then [nine months later] I deliver that baby," he says, adding that he's delivered a lot of babies, somewhere in the range of 5,000 to 6,000. "It is the most amazing experience and that is why I do it."