Louise Brown, the first IVF child conceived, is now an adult and a mother. So much has changed since her conception and birth – and yet so much has stayed the same. When it comes to human reproduction and medical science the physicians and scientists have helped couples conceive children through incredible breakthroughs in reproductive medicine – but the one thing that they have not been able to crack is how to “fix” a broken egg!!
Why is this important? It is important because egg quality one of the most important determinants of embryo viability. And, until very recently, distinguishing a healthy embryo from one that is not viable has been an educated guessing game, where most embryos are judged by it’s good looks rather than what is inside.
It’s amazing to me as the founder of The American Fertility Association, guiding thousands of potential parents on their path to parenthood that I have seen almost every kind of breakthrough there is – except one that helps women with aging eggs or multiple miscarriages, use her own eggs to have a child.
After all, we have been able to take one single sperm and make a baby – but still – we cannot help a woman with eggs that are not healthy become healthy enough to make a baby. That is rather incredible, isn’t it?
In fact, other than checking ovarian reserve or expensive genetic tests, we have been very limited in our ability to tell if an egg is normal or not. This, coupled with inability to look inside a seemingly normal embryo and know if it is a viable, has been one of the biggest hold backs in success for many couples.
So while we still can’t fix a broken egg, or can now crack the code on which embryos are healthy, and most likely to result in a baby. Pretty amazing stuff.
This new technology developed at RMANJ, and is also now available to patients at RMA Philadelphia and RMA Central Pennsylvania may be what is the pin in the needle stack for so many.
It’s a unique, rapid and scientific method to improve the embryo selection process, called SelectCCS (comprehensive chromosome screening).
This one-of-a-kind 24-chromosome screening platform identifies whether embryos are euploid (normal number of chromosomes or 46 with 23 obtained from each parent) or aneuploid (abnormal number of chromosomes).
Embryos are complicated, and errors can occur with all 23 pairs of chromosomes. Patients who opt to use SelectCCS are able to have their embryos screened at the molecular level which is more effective than previous testing processes that only count a handful of chromosomes. This can be especially helpful to women who have experienced miscarriages or are older as the current data suggests that 50-70% of miscarriages are due to embryos with too few or too many chromosomes.
Taking that extra step and using SelectCCS during the embryo selection process can improve the safety and success of your IVF cycle.
In addition to reducing the anxiety of not knowing if your embryos are healthy, the SelectCCS process allows patients to also take advantage of single embryo transfer (SET), which is a huge advantage as this allows patients the ability to avoid complicated twin pregnancies and deliveries.
It works like this, Select CCS allows the doctor to know if he/she is transferring a healthy embryo which is more likely to result in a healthy pregnancy. Therefore is no reason to transfer more than one embryo at a time. There is no compromising of success rates to avoid multiple birth pregnancies.
So if you are a patient 35 or older, or with multiple unsuccessful in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles or miscarriages, please check out SelectCCS. It truly might be the answer that you are looking for.