Let us give some ideas about what goes inside an IVF lab, There is so much care for your eggs, sperm and embryos that takes place in the IVF laboratory. Many patients do not know what an important role the embryology lab plays during their treatment process. Not only is there not much information on the IVF laboratory, but the field of embryology itself is not widely talked about which is an integral and most important part of your IVF journey.
The goal of ART laboratory is to provide an environment that mimics in vivo conditions to the closest in order to grow healthy embryos. Here we will be discussing some of the equipment’s that are mandatorily to be present in the IVF lab in order to carryout your process of IVF successfully. It is very important that you know about the IVF lab of your center where you are opting for your treatment.
(1) Incubators – Incubators are the biggest part of any IVF lab because this is where your embryos are fertilized. Incubator provides the appropriate environment for growth of the embryos which includes temperature, humidity, and air quality.
To maintain the quality of incubator routine calibration is needed.
THE INCUBATORS WE USE ARE
CO2 Incubator – Provide safe, stable and contamination free environment for culture. It uses pure CO2 to maintain the ph. of the culture media that is being used for the culture of the embryos. It is a humidified incubator.
G185 K-SYSTEM INCUBATOR- It keeps humidity in control therefore preventing any fungal growth inside the incubator, as it contain ten individual incubation chamber the cross contamination risk is also low, it has several advantages with quick temperature recovery time, hypoxic environment and less exposure which contributes to the suitable growth of the embryos.
MINC MINI INCUBATOR– humidified incubator with rapid ph recovery to maintain homeostasis.
(2)Gases Used In IVF Lab–
Co2– 5-7% of Co2 is used in IVF lab. pH of bicarbonate buffered media that is being used for the growth of the embryos is maintained by Co2. As a whole, CO2 is used in the lab to maintain the ph of the media where embryo is cultured thus allowing the embryos to carry their proper cell division and cellular metabolism for further growth.
O2– Scientific evidence suggests that blastocyst formation rate and the implantation rate is optimum when embryos are cultured in hypoxic environment that is o@ less than 5%.The amount of oxygen used is not more than 5-8% because more oxygen leads to increase in ROS level of embryo leading to DNA damage and low quality embryos.
(3) Laminar Air Flow-Sterility plays a major role in an IVF lab through which You can avoid all forms of contamination. Laminar air flow workstation contains high efficiency particulate air filter which constantly sterilize the air and your working conditions providing a sterile work environment for embryos and oocytes. The heating stage of the laminar provide 37°C temperature for working.
(4) Micromanipulation System-. It contains two microinjection made of silicon tubes which hold the oocyte in one and sperm in other and that’s how ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) is done. It’s also used for TESE, PESA process. The stage contains a heating plate which maintain the 37°C temperature to keep the temperature uniform mimicking the in vivo conditions.
Daily Cleaning and monitoring is required for this too.
(5) Quality Control– Recording the pH, temperature, level of O2 and CO2 all comes under quality control.
The normal pH inside incubator should be 7.2-7.4
Temperature –36.7°C- 37°C
CO2- 6%
O2- 5%
There are many instruments these days for it , the one we use is pH meter, it is very important that each IVF lab has its own analyzer to check all this parameters, At Pahlajanis IVF ,we ensure that analyzer is present at our all centers and also daily monitoring of this critical parameters are part of our standard operating procedure.
(6) Air Quality Maintenance – The development of embryo is inversely proportional to the amount of VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) that is more the VOC in air less will be the quality of embryo. Mainly two type of filter are used namely HEPA (High efficiency Particulate air) and VOC (Volatile organic compound)
(7) Liquid Nitrogen Tank– Where we store the embryo at -196°C
A comprehensive lab increases the chances of your success of getting pregnant through IVF, thus Pahlajanis IVF does ensures the quality and standard of the IVF lab is always at par with the international standards. With constant research and rigorous data analysis, constant work is done daily on the improvement of the success percentage. Pahlajanis IVF believes in transparency thus always makes sure that patients always get a clear picture of the infrastructure of the set up where they are undergoing their IVF treatment. Boost your chance of conceiving through IVF by choosing a IVF which meet all this standards.
