DAY 4: THE RIGHT DAY FOR EMBRYO TRANSFER

Have you had an IVF cycle at another institution and failed to get pregnant? Did you have a pregnancy but only to have a miscarriage, weeks later? Were you told that you had a great stimulation cycle but there are no embryos to freeze? IVF offers patients opportunities to achieve pregnancy that were not possible before, but there are new developments in this ever developing field that you should know about.

The main objective of the Fertility Treatment Center (FTC) is to provide our IVF patients around the Phoenix area with the most optimal chance of achieving a pregnancy. Through IVF studies performed by Dr Jun Tao, FTC’s Laboratory Director, it has been proven that Day 4 embryos that are showing signs of advanced development have a better selection value compared with those on Day 3. Not only have these embryos activated their genes, but they also indicate that the embryo has reached a more advanced stage. Further IVF research demonstrates that Day 4 embryos are the most stable embryo stage for freezing, thawing and transfer. Another major advantage to transferring an embryo on Day 4 is eliminating the need to transfer more embryos to achieve adequate pregnancy rates due to improved embryo grading and selection. This nearly eliminates the chances of pregnancies with triplets or greater, the biggest risk to a continued healthy pregnancy. Transferring embryos on Day 4 also saves on costs for an extra day of culturing compared to clinics that transfer on Day 5 at the blastocyst stage. With our unique embryo selection process and embryo freezing and thawing procedure our patients are given the greatest chance for success with In Vitro Fertilization.

A note about Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET): Frozen embryo transfer (FET) is the process of implanting embryos that were once frozen into a patient's uterus. Couples choose FET because their IUI treatment was not successful or because they had extra embryos from the first IVF cycle.  Any woman receiving donated embryos must undergo FET, and all donor embryos are frozen for at least six months.