Does your infertility clinic use vitrification when freezing blastocyst embryos?
They should. 1/8/09 Blastocyst embryos cryopreserved by vitrification and later transferred back into the uterus have the same pregnancy rates as freshly transferred embryos. In other words, using vitrification, the chances for pregnancy are now the same whether the embryos were freshly transferred or cryopreserved and later transferred in a frozen-thaw cycle. This is a major breakthrough in reproductive medicine and most patients are unaware of this. But not all infertility clinics are utilizing this superior method. Many are still using the “slow cooling” method for freezing their blastocyst embryos which results in inferior embryo survival and pregnancy rates(Lieberman, 2003). In view of the excellent survival rates and better implantation rates, we at DF have decided in 2007 to exclusively vitrify all blastocysts for embryo cryopreservation. And you should know that vitrification is no longer considered experimental. The FDA recently approved this process for Day 5, blastocyst cryo
