IVF Lab
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process of retrieving eggs and sperm and manually
fertilizing them in a laboratory dish outside the womb. Healthy embryos are then
transferred back into the uterus with the goal of implantation and further embryo
development.
IVF is performed by physicians who specialize in reproductive medicine and have
received additional education and training in the evaluation and treatment of male-factor
and female-factor infertility.
IVF involves four steps:
Stage I:
Ovarian Stimulation and Monitoring - In order to maximize the patient's chances
for successful fertilization, a patient undergoing IVF usually takes hormones in
the form of injections to increase the number of eggs produced in a given month.
Frequent monitoring is performed to continuously follow a woman's ovarian response,
allowing the physician to adjust and time medication dosage appropriately.
Stage II:
Egg (Ovum) Retrieval - Under sedation, the reproductive specialist extracts mature
eggs via ultrasound guidance. Egg retrieval is a minimally invasive procedure that
normally takes less than 15 minutes. Patients typically can resume normal activity
within the next day.
Stage III:
Culture and Fertilization - Embryologists use high-power microscopes and steady
precision to fertilize the eggs with sperm in the embryology laboratory. At times,
the sperm are released on top of the oocyte to fertilize it. In other cases, especially
when there are less than one million living sperm, intracytoplasmic sperm injection
(ICSI) is used where a single sperm is microinjected directly into the cytoplasm
of the ovum.
Stage IV:
Embryo Transfer - A fertility specialist will transfer the minimum number of healthy
and mature embryo(s) back into the uterus, with the goal of implantation in the
uterine wall. This procedure usually does not involve any sedation. The physician
will use ultrasound to guide a small catheter through the cervix and deposit the
embryo(s) in the uterus. The embryo transfer procedure takes only a few minutes
and recovery time is less than a day. Remaining viable embryos can be cryopreserved
and used for subsequent transfer cycles. A pregnancy test is performed 14 days after
the embryo transfer to evaluate whether implantation successfully occurred.
|