Calculating Probability of Pregnancy In Vitro

[Brow]

Easy, easy question--please help...

I have not taken stats in a long time and I was having trouble trying to solve this problem...

"When a woman is injected with an egg fertilized in vitro, the probability of it implanting successfully is 20%. If a woman is injected with five eggs simultaneously, what is the probability that she will become pregnant?"

thanks for the help.

 

[DaveC426913]

The way to deal with this is to reverse it.

With each egg, there is an 80% prob that it won't take. What is the total prob. that she will NOT get pregnant? 100 - that.

 

[tacman]

To calculate the probability of pregnancy in vitro, we need to use the multiplication rule of probability. This rule states that the probability of two independent events occurring together is equal to the product of their individual probabilities. In this case, the two events are the implantation of the fertilized egg and the injection of five eggs simultaneously.

First, we need to calculate the probability of one egg implanting successfully, which is 20% or 0.2. Next, we need to calculate the probability of all five eggs implanting successfully, which is equal to 0.2 raised to the power of 5 (since each event is independent). This gives us a probability of 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.00032 or 0.032%.

Therefore, the probability of pregnancy in vitro when a woman is injected with five eggs simultaneously is 0.032%. This is a very low probability, but it is important to keep in mind that many other factors can also affect the success of pregnancy in vitro, such as the health of the woman's reproductive system and the quality of the fertilized eggs. I hope this helps clarify the problem for you. Best of luck!