NWF - The North West Leading Fertility and IVF Centre

Each couple's chance of achieving a pregnancy through assisted conception (IVF, ICSI or IUI) is different according to their individual circumstances. Tailoring the treatment to the patient's characteristics is of paramount importance for a successful outcome while minimising the risks and costs.

Blastocyst transfer has recently been shown to increase the probability of pregnancy after IVF in some selected cases. With blastocyst transfer, embryos are cultured in the laboratory incubator to the blastocyst stage for five to six days after in-vitro fertilisation, and then transferred in to the uterus (womb) using a standard embryo trasnfer catheter and technique.

It is important to know that not all embryos may develop to produce blastocysts; therefore, in some cases, especially if there are fewer than 6 available embryos after fertilisation, it is better to consider a day two or day three embryo transfer than risk having no embryos to be transferred.

At NorthWest Fertility we have introduced blastocyst transfer in January 2009, and now offer this option as a means of improving chances of pregnancy after single embryo transfer. Our published data show very high clinical pregnancy rates in those women who have embryos transferred at the blastocyst stage of development.