Short answer: an AMH test measures a hormone made by the small follicles in your ovaries, and it gives a reasonable estimate of how many eggs are likely to be collected if you have IVF. It does not tell you whether you can conceive naturally. It tells you nothing about the quality of your eggs. And it cannot tell you when you will reach the menopause.
That is a narrower claim than most of what you will read about AMH, including from some clinics. It is worth understanding before you pay for the test, and certainly before you let a number frighten you.
AMH stands for anti-Müllerian hormone. It is produced by the small, resting follicles in your ovaries — the ones too small to see on a scan. The more of those follicles you have, the more AMH circulates in your blood.
So AMH works as a rough headcount of the follicles you have left. Doctors call it a marker of ovarian reserve. It is a single blood test, it can be taken at any point in your cycle, and you do not need to fast beforehand.
In the UK, results are reported in pmol/L. Some international laboratories and research papers use ng/mL instead, where 1 ng/mL is roughly 7.14 pmol/L. Different laboratory assays are not directly interchangeable, so a result from one lab cannot be compared like-for-like with a result from another. If you are having repeat tests, it is worth having them done in the same place.
The honest version, in short:
This is the one thing AMH is genuinely good for, and it is why fertility clinics measure it. NICE guideline NG257, the current UK guidance on fertility problems, says: “Use AMH measurement or antral follicle count (AFC) as predictors of ovarian response to inform clinical decision making and patient counselling about the likelihood of live birth following assisted conception.”
In practice, that means your AMH helps us decide how much medication you need. Too little and you may produce very few eggs; too much and you risk ovarian hyperstimulation. AMH is one of the things that lets us aim properly the first time rather than learning from a cycle that went badly.
This is the part that gets misrepresented, and it matters, because plenty of people have an AMH test out of curiosity and then spend months frightened by the answer.
NG257 is unambiguous: “Do not use anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) measurement as a predictor of clinical pregnancy through spontaneous conception.”
The evidence behind that is strong. A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis in Frontiers in Endocrinology, pooling eleven studies and 4,388 women, concluded that “serum AMH levels have poor predictive value for natural pregnancy”, and that “a decreased AMH level does not represent decreased natural fertility in young or old females”. A study funded by the US National Institutes of Health followed 750 women aged 30 to 44 who were trying to conceive. After six cycles of trying, the women with low AMH had a 65% chance of conception. The women with normal AMH had 62%.
To be fair to the science, it is not quite “no relationship at all”. A large 2024 study of 3,150 women found that AMH below 1 ng/mL was associated with a modest reduction in the chance of natural conception. But modest at the level of a population is a very different thing from predictive for you, sitting in a consulting room with one number on a piece of paper.
AMH counts follicles. It does not grade them. There is no blood test for egg quality, and any clinic that implies otherwise is overselling.
Egg quality matters enormously — it is the main reason live birth rates fall with age — but the best available guide to it remains your age, not a hormone level. You can have a low AMH and good-quality eggs, and a reassuring AMH and eggs that fertilise poorly.
A 2023 systematic review in Human Reproduction Update examined exactly this question and found that “AMH alone could not be used to predict age at menopause with precision”, with confidence intervals “ranging from 2 to 12 years for women aged under 40”. A twelve-year window is not a prediction. It is a shrug.
The one exception the same review notes: a very low AMH in a young woman does carry real clinical weight, because it can indicate an increased risk of premature ovarian insufficiency. That is a reason to be seen, not a reason to panic.
There is no single normal, and as of 2026 there is no longer an official UK number either.
The previous NICE guideline, CG156, published cut-offs — an AMH at or below 5.4 pmol/L indicating a likely low response, at or above 25.0 pmol/L a likely high response. NG257, which replaced it in March 2026, contains no numeric AMH, antral follicle count or FSH thresholds at all. It also now recommends against using FSH as a marker of ovarian reserve, because “FSH levels do not predict clinical pregnancy or ovarian response”.
What you will get instead is your result set against an age-related reference range from the laboratory that ran it. AMH falls steadily with age, so a result that would be unremarkable at 42 is a finding at 28. That is why the number on its own is close to meaningless, and why we will not interpret a result over email.
A low AMH means your ovaries are likely to produce fewer eggs in a stimulated cycle. That has practical consequences: it may change the stimulation protocol, it may change how many cycles you should plan for, and if you are freezing eggs it changes the arithmetic of how many cycles you need to bank a sensible number.
What it does not mean is that you cannot conceive. It does not mean your eggs are poor. It is not a countdown. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine puts it plainly: extremely low AMH values “should not be used to refuse treatment in IVF”, and AMH “should not be used as a fertility test or to deny access to infertility treatment”.
If your result is low and you are under 35, we will want to look at it properly rather than leave you with the number.
A high AMH usually means a large pool of small follicles, which is common in polycystic ovary syndrome. It predicts a strong response to stimulation, which is a good thing in terms of egg numbers and something we watch carefully, because a strong response also carries a higher risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. It is a reason to use a gentler protocol, not a reason to celebrate or worry.
It is genuinely useful if:
It is less useful if you simply want to know whether you are fertile. It will not answer that question, and it may make you feel worse.
Your AMH is one input among several, and it is always read alongside an ultrasound scan of your ovaries, your age and your history. It informs your treatment plan rather than deciding it.
It also has one direct practical use here: AMH above 10 pmol/L is one of the criteria for our Simple IVF™ pathway at £2,900 a cycle, which is a streamlined route for people whose situation is straightforward. All of the criteria are published on our prices page, so you can see where you stand before you speak to us.
An AMH test is part of our female fertility assessment, which is £390. Every result is reviewed by a Fertility Doctor, and you will have it explained to you by a person, not sent to you as a number.
Not much. Unlike FSH, AMH is relatively stable across the menstrual cycle, which is why the test can be done on any day. It does fall gradually over years, and hormonal contraception can lower it somewhat while you are taking it.
No. There is no supplement, diet or treatment that has been shown to raise AMH in a way that increases the number of eggs your ovaries hold. Anything sold on that promise is not supported by evidence.
Not exactly, but it is the closest blood test we have. An antral follicle count — counting the visible follicles on an ultrasound scan — gives similar information, and NG257 treats the two as broadly interchangeable for predicting ovarian response. In practice, doing both gives a better picture than either alone.
No. You can book a fertility assessment with us directly, and no GP referral is needed.
There is no threshold above which IVF works and below which it does not. A higher AMH generally means more eggs collected, which generally means more embryos to choose from. It does not guarantee a birth, and a lower AMH does not rule one out.
If you have a result you do not understand, bring it to us. Start with a free 15-minute consultation with a Fertility Specialist — no referral needed, and no obligation. Book a free consultation, or read about our fertility assessments first.
