If we put the progress in IVF methods that have occurred since Louise Brown’s birth in 1978 in a time capsule to be opened 100 years from now in 2112,  what are some of the milestones in it? What would people think of it when they found it? First a preview of the pre-IVF time [...]

Hi Victoria, You asked me:  Do previously cryopreserved embryos develop similarly to fresh embryos so that, if one is attempting an e-SET, growing them out is one way to determine the ‘best’ one or are they somehow more fragile? How well thawed embryos grow out depend on several factors: method of freezing and thawing (Vitrification [...]

I have written before on the topic of medical tourism, the practice of seeking medical care oversees because it is less expensive or because you can only get the services you want overseas and not in your home country. I blogged about this in two previous posts , Affordable IVF and Global Outsourcing of IVF. [...]

When is surrogacy not really surrogacy? The recent legal case of attorney Theresa Erickson sheds considerable light on at least one way to manipulate and defraud both intended parents and gestational carriers and redefine surrogacy as baby-selling for personal gain. Most IVF programs in the US will produce embryos for couples (usually using their own [...]

I get a lot of questions from you (Q from U) about assisted hatching so here is more on that topic. What is assisted hatching (AH) ? Assisted hatching is a technique used by embryologists to produce an opening in the outer shell of the egg called the zona pellucida.  We talk about hatching in [...]

Hi Readers, I am starting a new series, called Questions from You (Q from U), in which I answer some of the common patient questions I get from my contact email. Recently, I seem to be getting more questions about embryo biopsy for PGD. In the beginning, PGD biopsy meant biopsy of one (or at [...]

A recent news story out of Fort Worth Texas, Parents Sue Cryogenic Center Over Child’s Cystic Fibrosis ,brought to light a risk that many patients using sperm donors should be aware of. More importantly, it exposes the weak oversight of reproductive technology by both state and federal agencies that are charged with protecting the public’s health. [...]

I get a recurring question from my readers, sometimes posed in the comments section and sometimes via email. Understandably, patients want a checklist of points to review for good clinics and a checklist of points or warning signs for the bad clinics. Coming up with a “naughty and nice” list is not so simple because [...]

Recently one of my readers had a question that I think many patients who go through IVF may have. She wanted to understand what blastocyst grading means in terms of embryo quality and then, obviously the implications for her  chances of pregnancy. Her question was: ” I just had two expanded blastocysts transferred on day [...]

Every week, we field questions about using sperm donors from patients who can’t have a child unless they can use donor sperm and most buy sperm from a commercial sperm bank. They may be a married couple in which the man does not produce sperm or had a vasectomy that he doesn’t want to reverse [...]