Ultimate guide to Blastocyst Transfer
Embryos turn into blastocyst on the 5th day of fertilization. It is cell division stage when embryo is hatched out of the shell. Now it is ready to be placed into the uterus lining.
What is Blastocyst?
An embryo of 5 to 7 days old has two rare cell types with a central cavity comprising of blastocoels cavity. The blastocyst cell shows its distinction. Its surface cells enclosing the cavity is named as trophectoderm that develops into placenta. The central bunch of cells develop the fetus.
Blastocyst transfer procedure
Get Complete Overview of Blastocyst Transfer 5-Step Process
1. During natural pregnancy cycle, an embryo of 2 –3 days old is seen in fallopian tubes instead uterus. It initially moves towards uterus after 3 days of ovulation. An implantation process begins after three days once the blastocyst is formed and hatched from the embryonic shell.
2. Therefore by extending the In-vitro culture conditions, the healthy blastocyst is formed and it can be transferred on 5th day at a natural time when embryo should be in the uterus.
3. On the 5th day of blastocyst transfer the uterus lining should be perfect and active for arriving embryo, it is similar to natural pregnancy situation.
4. Blastocyst transfer after IVF also offers significant advantages- decreasing the chance of having twins or more kids.
5. In few cases, embryos of 2-3 days old age are not strong enough to turn into healthy blastocysts and create quality pregnancy.
Advantages of Blastocyst Transfer
Some Key points in Blastocyst Transfer
- Easily weeding out the quality embryos from the abnormal ones without the need of costly procedures
- In vitro culture conditions are extended to develop high quality blastocysts at a good rate to conduct the blastocyst transfer on the 5th day
- Higher rates to get pregnant successfully
- Blastocyst transfer after IVF also offers great advantage of lowering the risk of having many babies
All embryos that are 2-3 day old do not become the healthy blastocysts and result into quality pregnancy. Although on 2nd or 3rd day of culture, it is hard to find which embryo is healthy and which is not.
Culturing the embryos on 5th day helps in finding that which of them have not succeeded in transforming into blastocysts, it makes it easy to select the healthiest embryo that can be transferred successfully
Then a couple of embryos can be transferred to increase the success rate of becoming pregnant and also limiting the chance of multiple pregnancies.
However earlier it was hard to receive the best quality blastocysts by using in-vitro culture conditions without the use of feeder cells. But in the present time, it is possible to transfer the blastocyst embryo safely and it has become a feasible part of IVF treatment for many conceiving couples.