Dr. Sagarika Aggarwal
When Ritu and Mahesh, a working couple in their late 30s failed to experience parenthood despite seeking a gynaecologist’s assistance, they were advised to choose IVF way. Desperate to experience parenthood, the couple agreed for IVF but Ritu’s failure to conceive even in several cycles, left the couple totally disheartened.
It was then, Ritu’s friend informed her about this technique of conducting IVF procedure in a “Closed Working Chamber” which has a higher success rate as it provides unique advantage to mimic a womb-like condition for eggs and sperm during the IVF process in order to form good quality and healthy embryos.
Advanced technological methods and a pain-free procedure have not just made IVF patient-friendly procedure, but also has given a millions of couples a reason to smile.
Impact of Environment on Embryo
A lot of patients ask, why IVF in closed chambers is advantageous? IVF laboratory is the key to success in any IVF procedure. Therefore the IVF laboratory has to be designed in such a way that it provides an environment that is as close to optimum as possible for the growth and development of human embryos and to provide the best resulting pregnancy rates for patients undergoing IVF treatment or cycles. If we talk of environment, maintaining air quality control is the biggest challenge for all IVF labs and clinics. Embryos may be subjected to unforeseen and unexpected harsh environmental contamination such as mix of dust, pesticides, smoke, perfumes, volcanic ash, mold, and bacteria, etc. which can affect the quality of embryo.
Hence the ambience required for embryos to grow must be of high standard and quality. Moreover, embryos are extremely sensitive to the presence of any smells, volatile organic compounds, or chemically active particles. Hence IVF Laboratory should be built in such a way that outside contaminates cannot enter the lab.
Why Choose Closed Working Chamber
The requirement of eggs to develop into embryos in IVF laboratory in the initial stages is very crucial and important as it requires maximum care and hygienic environment. Therefore, closed working chambers, in which egg fertilisation takes place are well equipped with facilities which favour the formation of good quality embryo. While the eggs and sperm fertilise within the chambers, a proper environment is provided by a controlled temperature and gas mixture. Infact the temperature condition inside these chambers are exactly the way foetus experiences it inside a mother’s womb.
There is O2 present in less than 5%, and CO2 is 6% with the temperature set at 37%, which favors the fertilisation process, and thus the embryo formed is of better quality.
Therefore, such an embryo is when transferred in a woman’s womb, it doesn’t experience any kind of “thermal shock” which it may experience in a regular IVF procedure. So it definitely enhances the survival and success rate.
Another added advantage of these closed working chamber is that the temperature within the enclosed area is safe for long term microscopical evaluation.
Also, for a layman, IVF in broad terms would be a technique of egg fertilisation with the sperm in specific lab conditions. But factually, it consists of various minor processes and techniques which play equal role in success of IVF and better development of embryo. And to increase success rate of healthy embryo formation, all these procedures are carried out in this unique chamber.
Once the embryos are created, after 2-3 days until the cells have divided and the embryo consists of about eight cells, they are graded for their quality. A trained embryologist selects one, two or three of the embryos of good quality to transfer in the womb so that they can develop. Any remaining unaffected good quality embryos can be frozen for later use.
And price of this cutting edge treatment is absolutely same as normal IVF. So, for making healthy babies why not to go for the best treatment available because “quality” is the key to reliable IVF procedures.
(The author is Gynaecologist & Infertility Specialist Indira IVF, Delhi)
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