What is cryopreservation?

* Cryopreservation is freezing tissue or cells in order to preserve it for the future.
* Cryopreservation is used in infertility programs to freeze and store sperm, eggs or to freeze embryos from an in vitro fertilization cycle
* There are 2 methods currently used for freezing in IVF labs Slow freezing Vitrification (ultra-rapid freezing)
* Our IVF/ICSI program has been using vitrification to freeze embryos with excellent success rates with frozen embryo transfer cycles

What is vitrification for IVF/ICSI?

* Vitrification is ultra-rapid IVF embryo freezing instead of the traditional slow freezing process.
* Vitrification in IVF can allow freezing of spare embryos with better post-thaw survival rates and higher pregnancy and live birth rates from frozen embryo transfer cycles. We started vitrification of blastocysts in our IVF lab since we started depending on blastocyst to transfer embryos, but lately we advocate to vitrify only euploid embryos, and have seen excellent post-thaw embryo survival and substantially higher pregnancy rates after frozen transfer procedures as we make sure that the embryo is genetically (related to the number of chromosomes) normal.

Advantages of Frozen cycle embryo transfer:

* Recent reports have been showing many advantages out from undergoing frozen embryo transfer:

* better embryo implantation rates in comparison to fresh embryo transfer
* better pregnancy rates
* less miscarriage rates
*less preterm labor
*heavier babies at the time of delivery