The blastocyst culture consists of maintaining the embryos in culture in the laboratory until they reach the blastocyst stage on day 5 of development.
In order to perform a successful blastocyst culture, it is important to have a state-of-the-art laboratory and a team of qualified biologists, which guarantees that the embryos can continue developing without difficulties.
The transfer of blastocyst stage embryos has proven to significantly increase pregnancy rates, compared to transfers on day 2 or 3 of their development. This is due to a better selection of the embryos to be transferred.
It is normal that not all embryos reach the blastocyst stage, which is due to the embryos not being of sufficient quality to achieve a pregnancy. Conversely, embryos that reach the blastocyst stage on day 5 are those with a higher chance of achieving a pregnancy.
How many blastocyst stage embryos should be transferred?
The blastocyst culture allows us to select embryos with higher implantation potential, therefore we can follow a more conservative approach when deciding the number of embryos to transfer. This depends on the clinical history of each patient, but in cases with good prognoses, the recommendation will always be to transfer a single embryo.
What is the blastocyst transfer success rate?
Transferring a single blastocyst stage embryo offers high changes for pregnancy, reducing the potential for a multiple pregnancy.
Can embryos in blastocyst stage be frozen?
With blastocyst culture, we will have less embryos to freeze but ones of higher quality. The survival rate of frozen blastocyst stage embryos is very high, increasing the chances of achieving a pregnancy.