The Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital is located at 75 Francis Street in Boston — the main entrance address of Brigham and Women's Hospital on the Longwood Medical Area, Harvard Medical School's primary clinical campus. This is one of the most academically prestigious fertility programs in the United States, affiliated with both the Brigham and Women's Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Harvard Medical School. Patients treated here receive care from physician-scientists who are simultaneously shaping the research base of reproductive medicine and managing individual patient cases. For patients seeking fertility clinics in Massachusetts, the Brigham program represents the gold standard of academic medical center fertility care in the Boston area.
Physicians and Clinical Team
The Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital is staffed by physician-scientists who hold faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and clinical appointments in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology. The physicians are board-certified reproductive endocrinologists with fellowship training, and many hold additional credentials in reproductive surgery, genetics, or reproductive immunology.
The academic structure of this program means that faculty physicians — not rotating residents — are the primary providers of fertility care. At Brigham and Women's, the fertility program physicians include active researchers whose laboratory and clinical research contributions are published in major peer-reviewed journals. Patients who choose an academic medical center fertility program benefit from physicians who have firsthand knowledge of the latest clinical findings, not just familiarity with published guidelines.
Brigham and Women's is also a major center for reproductive surgery — one of the defining dimensions of the program's name. The reproductive surgeons here manage complex cases: advanced endometriosis requiring excision beyond what community surgeons typically perform, uterine anomalies requiring surgical correction, myomectomy for large or multiple fibroids, and other surgically challenging presentations that often require the combination of advanced surgical skill and fertility expertise available only at high-volume academic centers.
The clinical team also includes reproductive endocrinology fellows (physicians in specialty training), nurses with extensive IVF experience, embryologists, clinical geneticists, and patient coordinators whose collaboration defines the academic fertility program model.
Services and Treatments
The Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery at Brigham and Women's provides:
- In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) — fresh and frozen embryo transfer cycles, including complex protocols for poor responders, older patients, and prior IVF failures
- Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) — for male-factor infertility and fertilization challenges
- Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT-A / PGT-M / PGT-SR) — chromosomal screening, monogenic disease testing, and structural rearrangement testing; the Brigham program coordinates with top genetics laboratories
- Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) — with endometrial receptivity evaluation and immune modulation when indicated
- Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) — with partner or donor sperm
- Ovulation Induction — monitored cycles for ovulatory disorders
- Egg Freezing (Oocyte Cryopreservation) — elective and medically indicated; the program has a developed fertility preservation service for cancer patients
- Donor Egg Cycles — through the Brigham / Partners (Mass General Brigham) donor program
- Gestational Surrogacy — coordination through the program's legal and clinical framework
- Advanced Reproductive Surgery — laparoscopic, robotic, and hysteroscopic procedures, including complex endometriosis excision, myomectomy, uterine septum repair, and adhesiolysis
- Reproductive Immunology — evaluation and treatment of immune-mediated implantation failure and recurrent pregnancy loss
- Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Evaluation — using the full diagnostic resources of the Brigham and Harvard-affiliated laboratories
- Fertility Preservation for Cancer Patients — with an oncofertility service coordinated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham's oncology departments
- Male Infertility Evaluation — including coordination with the Brigham's urology program for surgical sperm retrieval and andrology evaluation
Laboratory and Success Rates
The Brigham's IVF laboratory is staffed by experienced embryologists managing ICSI fertilization, blastocyst culture, embryo grading, PGT biopsy, and vitrification. The academic medical center context means the laboratory operates within a quality assurance framework defined by institutional oversight, JCAHO accreditation, and the research culture of a Harvard-affiliated institution. The laboratory also supports embryo research under IRB-approved protocols, keeping its techniques aligned with the frontier of the field.
Patients should review the most current cycle-level data published by the CDC's ART Surveillance program and the SART Clinic Summary Report.
Patient Experience
75 Francis Street sits in the Longwood Medical Area — Boston's dense, world-class medical campus shared by Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School. The concentration of medical expertise in this small geographic area is unmatched in the United States.
Patients at Brigham and Women's fertility clinic are often those with complex clinical presentations — advanced maternal age with poor ovarian response, rare hereditary conditions requiring PGT-M, complex pelvic anatomy requiring reproductive surgery before IVF can proceed, or immunological causes of repeated implantation failure that have not been identified or addressed at other programs. The Brigham's multidisciplinary resources — genetics, immunology, hematology, oncology, maternal-fetal medicine — are immediately accessible in a way that is simply not possible at independent private practices.
Parking in the Longwood Medical Area is challenging and expensive; most patients use the shuttle system, public transit (Green Line E branch), or rideshare. Early-morning monitoring appointments can be managed with a reasonable commute from the Boston metro area.
Considering At-Home Insemination?
Not every fertility journey begins in a clinic. At-home intracervical insemination (ICI) is a lower-cost, private option that suits patients with no known fertility diagnosis — including single parents by choice, same-sex couples, and people who want to try a few cycles before committing to clinical treatment.
At-home insemination kits like those from MakeAMom come with step-by-step instructions designed for donor or partner sperm. Kits are a one-time purchase that can be reused until conception succeeds, require no clinic visit, and arrive in plain, discreet packaging. Many patients use them as a first step while working toward a fertility consultation — or alongside ovulation tracking while they wait for an appointment slot.
If you have a known fertility diagnosis, have been trying for 12 months without success (six months if you're over 35), or your physician has already recommended IUI or IVF, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist is the right next step.
Insurance and Financing
Massachusetts has a comprehensive fertility insurance mandate requiring most employer-sponsored group plans issued in the state to cover infertility treatment, including IVF. The Massachusetts mandate is among the strongest in the country. Brigham and Women's participates in a wide range of insurance networks and accepts most Massachusetts-regulated commercial plans.
Self-insured ERISA plans are exempt from the Massachusetts mandate. Brigham's financial counselors are experienced in navigating the complex billing landscape of an academic medical center, where facility fees, physician fees, laboratory charges, and anesthesia may appear as separate line items on patient bills. Patients should request a comprehensive pre-treatment cost estimate that accounts for all components of their care.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why would a patient choose Brigham and Women's over a private fertility clinic in Boston? The Brigham is the right choice for patients with complex cases: advanced maternal age, multiple prior IVF failures, complex reproductive surgery needs, hereditary conditions requiring specialized PGT, active cancer requiring oncofertility coordination, or immunological causes of recurrent pregnancy loss. Patients with straightforward presentations can receive excellent care at private Boston-area clinics; the Brigham's particular strength is in the complex, the unusual, and the cases that require the combined resources of a major academic medical center.
Does the program involve trainees seeing patients? At any academic medical center, fellows (subspecialty trainees) are part of the care team. At Brigham and Women's, fertility fellows participate in patient care under faculty supervision. Patients who specifically want to be seen only by senior faculty should communicate this preference when scheduling.
Does Massachusetts mandate IVF coverage for Brigham patients? Yes. Massachusetts requires most state-regulated group plans to cover IVF. The Brigham participates in most of these plans. Self-insured ERISA plans are exempt — patients should verify their specific plan.
What makes the reproductive surgery program at Brigham distinctive? The Brigham's reproductive surgeons are highly experienced with complex pelvic presentations — deeply infiltrating endometriosis, large or multiple fibroids requiring myomectomy, uterine anomalies, and severe intrauterine adhesion syndromes. The volume and complexity of surgical cases at a major academic center translate into surgical skill and experience that exceeds what community-based reproductive surgeons typically accumulate.