Assisted hatching | Dr Rama Sofat Hospital
How Do Embryos Hatch?
To understand assisted hatching, first, it would help to understand the natural hatching of an embryo.
Before you get an embryo, you start with an oocyte or egg. The oocyte has a protein-shell surrounding it known as the zona pellucida. The zona pellucida has many roles in embryo development, and these functions change as the embryo grows.
Before the egg becomes an embryo, the zona pellucida fuses with sperm cells. This is the start of the fertilization process. Once a single sperm cell penetrates the shell and fertilizes the egg, the zona pellucida hardens. This prevents more sperm cells from entering the now-fertilized zygote.
The hardened shell also helps prevent the embryo from implanting prematurely in the fallopian tubes (which would cause an ectopic pregnancy). It also keeps the many blastocyst cells together.
As the zygote travels down the fallopian tube and develops into the blastocysts stage, the zona pellucida expands and begins to thin and deteriorate. Around day four of development, the zona pellucida cracks open and the blastocyst/embryo emerges, leaving behind the thin-protein shell. This is the embryo hatching process.
What Is Assisted Hatching?
During IVF treatment, fertilization takes place in the lab. But as any couple that has gone through an IVF treatment knows, having a fertilized embryo does not guarantee a pregnancy. The embryo transferred has to implant itself into the endometrium and “stick” for pregnancy to occur.
Who Might Benefit From Assisted Hatching?
There is evidence that assisted hatching may improve clinical pregnancy rates with patients who:
- Have experienced two or more failed IVF cycles
- Have poor embryo quality
- Are older than age 38
It was thought that assisted hatching might be worth trying with frozen embryo transfer cycles, but this may not be the case. In fact, one study found that assisted hatching in a frozen embryo cycle may slightly decrease the odds of a live birth.
Assisted Hatching | Dr Rama Sofat Hospital
Reviewed by Amanpreet Singh
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