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A blastocyst is an embryo that has developed successfully to day 5 of life. Embryos cannot survive long in the labs because, by day six, these blastocysts hatch out of the eggshell and require the mother's uterus to latch on and develop further. A blastocyst transfer is done on day 5 after the oocyte retrieval.

Advantages of Blastocyst Treatment:

• It ensures the quality of the embryos. Only good quality embryos reach the blastocyst stage of development. This allows us a single embryo transfer if required.
• It is the natural physiological stage when the embryo enters the uterus! Many centers propose that good or bad embryos can be selected by day 3 of development as well but our contention is that the uterine lining is not compatible on that day since naturally, the embryo tumbles into the uterus only on day 5. We, therefore, carry out day 5 transfers especially in patients who have had repeated implantation failures.
• It allows us to test or screen embryos genetically if indicated. Embryo biopsy is carried out on day 1-2 of development and the embryo is allowed to grow. Embryos are then put back at the blastocyst stage if they are normal.
• It ensures quality control in the lab.

Disadvantages of Blastocyst Transfer Treatment:

• If there are very few embryos, it is possible that there may be the arrest of development and no blastocyst forms. In such cases, there may be no embryo transfer.
• There is a higher chance of identical twins because of the splitting of the blastocyst.

For whom Blastocyst IVF Transfer is suggested?

The best fertility clinics are now offering Blastocyst treatment as a means of improving the chances of pregnancy after a single embryo transfer. This procedure is particularly useful for young women that have a good prognosis for pregnancy from IVF.

Our IVF doctors may also suggest going for blastocyst transfer if they have produced good quality embryos in their previous IVF cycle but they had failed to implant in the womb.

This procedure is not normally recommended if someone produces less than normal healthy eggs.

As with embryo transfer, due to the risks of a multiple births, someone may want to consider a single blastocyst transfer. Indeed, we encourage to have only one transferred.

The success rate in cases with blastocyst transfer is as high as in natural conception the embryo enters the uterine cavity at this stage of development and implantation takes place.

Blastocyst transfer in India is done in the cases of previous IVF failures cycles, and in cases of secondary infertility where the couple has only one child but to reduce the chance of multiple pregnancy blastocyst transfers is done.