Process Of IVF

Hello friends!

I am Dr. Riddhi Doshi. Today I am going to talk about the process of IVF. What is IVF? How does this process work? I am going to answer these questions in the most simple way possible. IVF actually means In-vitro fertilization that is a union of the male gamete which is the sperm and the female gamete which is the egg. That fertilization, when done outside the body, is called as IVF or In-vitro fertilization. Now sperms can be directly retrieved through the semen sample by the masturbation process. Eggs cannot be retrieved directly from the body of the women. For that purpose hormonal injections are given to the women for a period of 10-12 days to stimulate her ovaries to grow a number of follicles. Then that follicular fluid is aspirated through a sonography probe with the needle puncture method.

Through that follicular fluid, the eggs are isolated under a microscope. The eggs which are retrieved are graded as per their maturity and the mature eggs are selected for fertilization. The fertilization of the egg and the sperm can be done by two ways- one is the conventional IVF method in which the sperm and eggs are simply kept together in a petridish and allowed to fertilize. The second method which is now more commonly used is called as the ICSI that is Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection. Here the sperm is individually selected and injected in the egg and that's how the fertilization is done. This process takes place in the laboratory under strict septic conditions and performed by an embryologist. Once the fertilization is done, the embryos start to grow and they have certain number of days through which they progress. The mature the good quality high grade embryos are then transported into the uterus through a very thin catheter.

This is an office procedure called as the embryo transfer and it is a painless simple procedure which is done. Once the embryos are transferred, the medications are given for two weeks which involves support medications of Oestrogen and Progesterone hormone. Thereafter the pregnancy test is done through a blood test where the hormone level of beta hCG is checked. If the beta hCG level is positive the pregnancy is confirmed. This is how the entire process of IVF works. It is a simple process and there is lot of misconception regarding it being very complicated or causing lot of hardship to the patient. I hope I was able to help with this process.

Thank you.