Cryopreservation

There are a number of reasons why egg freezing can be beneficial, particularly for women who wish to preserve their fertility for the future. These include:

If you want to delay bearing a child for pursuing goals related to education, career or personal life.
If you have a cancer diagnosis
If you wish to keep the option of frozen embryo transfer cycle open for future pregnancy

There are several reasons why couples might opt for freezing and storing their embryos, including:

Cryopreservation might be deemed as a better option as compared to destroying the extra embryos
It provides another opportunity for achieving pregnancy if the process of IVF fails initially. The woman won’t have to go through ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval in future IVF cycles.
Even if the couple has a baby, the frozen embryos can be used for having another baby in the future.
Cryopreservation provides an option of saving embryos before the woman undergoes treatments, such as that for cancer, which might eliminate or reduce her chances of achieving pregnancy
The saved embryos can even be donated to other couples
The saved embryos can even be donated for the purpose of scientific research

Embryo freezing or cryopreservation is a process that our specialists use for freezing and storing fertilized eggs or embryos. Usually, the eggs created during the process of IVF that remain unused are frozen. The process of embryo cryopreservation involves embryo freezing as its first step. The next step involves storing frozen embryos. Later, if needed, the embryos are thawed for use in future IVF cycles. As a result, the patients that are undergoing IVF currently have the option of saving time and money with future cycles. In the future cycles, the woman won’t have to take as many medications or undergo the egg retrieval process.

In general, couples choose to freeze their embryos because they wish to have additional options in the future if they decide to become a parent. Other reasons why cryopreservation is considered to include factors like increasing age, risk of injury because of a medical condition or cancer treatment.

Embryo vitrification is a process that involves embryos being frozen into a glass-like state. The embryos can be indefinitely stored once they are vitrified. Fertility experts at BirthRight Fertility by Rainbow can help you know more about it.

If you are in your prime years, you may be confident about being successfully able to start a family in the future. However, the path to pregnancy isn’t always straightforward for all women. You may not want to wait for too long before you explore the option of fertility preservation. You should consult with your healthcare provider regarding the same.

There have been researches that show that freezing the embryo and later thawing them, doesn’t have any harmful effect on the babies made subsequently through IVF. The success rate of IVF isn’t affected by the amount of time the embryo was stored.

Thanks to new and improved technology being used, there is hardly any difference in the rate of pregnancy between fresh and frozen embryos. Additionally, frozen embryo transfer involves a gentler stimulation process with normal hormonal levels, which may improve the rate of pregnancy.

During the slow freeze process, if any ice crystals are formed, they may harm the embryo during the process of thawing. It is because of this risk that vitrification is the preferred technique for cryopreservation. There is no increased risk of birth defects among children born from frozen embryos.

After embryos are frozen, they can be indefinitely stored. The longest duration of storing a human embryo has been around 30 years. Typically, people who have had their embryos stored for over a decade do not end up using them. Even thawing after 20 years has resulted in healthy babies from frozen embryos.

Oocyte freezing is a procedure which consists of freezing viable oocytes (eggs) prior to fertilization. These frozen oocytes can be thawed and fertilized with sperm at some date in future for the purpose of treatment.
It is usually considered for:

Women who are about to undergo treatment for certain cancers, which may affect the ovaries, preventing production of oocytes in the future.
In cases where insemination of oocytes with sperm after retrieval was cancelled due to inability of husband to produce semen samples. When donor sperm is not an option, oocytes may be frozen until the husband undergoes treatment and is able to provide viable sperms.
Ovarian stimulation and oocyte collection procedures are similar to standard IVF. The oocytes are then frozen within 24 hours of collection. At any later date, they can be thawed and injected with sperm as in ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) to achieve fertilization. The timing, preparation of uterine cavity and embryo transfer are as for frozen-embryo transfers.

Oocyte freezing is still considered to be in its experimental stage. In comparison with frozen embryo cycles, oocyte freeze/thaw cases are much lower in number due to the poor survival rate of oocytes. However, after the introduction of Vitrification, the technique has significantly improved.

Yes, freezing of embryos is done only after they are fertilized. There are even options for freezing oocytes of eggs before they fertilize. In such cases, fertilization is performed after thawing the eggs, after which the embryo can be transferred.

Frozen embryo transfer is considered to be as successful as fresh embryo transfers. In fact, a lot of IVF specialists even recommend the use of frozen eggs over fresh ones for embryo transfer. Both procedures have a similar success rate.


Sperms can be frozen for a number of reasons:

To store donated sperm (sperm banking) (Not done at our centre)
Back up sperm samples are frozen for couples undergoing infertility treatment if the husband finds it difficult to ejaculate on demand. Such frozen samples are thawed and used for insemination on the day of oocyte retrieval.
Surplus surgically extracted sperms (TESA, PESA), can be frozen after they have been used for insemination.
Prior to cancer treatment that may compromise fertility.