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DR. JIMMY GILL: IVF or otherwise known as In-Vitro Fertilization is a commonly used procedure today for the treatment of infertility. It involves obtaining eggs from a woman after she’s undergone hormonal treatment. These eggs are obtained in the laboratory and then fertilized using the husband’s sperm. We’re able to culture embryos, fertilize them, culture them and grow out embryos anywhere up to five days up to blastocyst. We watch embryos grow from two cells to four cells all the way to the final stage. Once we’ve grown out embryos through the blastocyst stage, we’re actually able to transfer these embryos back into a woman’s uterus and achieve pregnancies.

Now, there are other procedures we can also do in the laboratory such as ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection. This has really revolutionized the way we can treat male infertility. Now, for men who have low sperm counts, abnormal sperm, who’ve had vasectomies or are not producing any sperm, we’re able to actually obtain a single sperm, inject it into an egg and create an embryo, and again culture this out for further transfer into a woman’s uterus.

Along the way, there’s another procedure called assisted hatching. This is a procedure whereby we can actually drill a hole in the shell of the embryo in order to help it implant in people who have implantation failures. This has also revolutionized the way women can now get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization.