What happens to eggs and sperm at a fertility clinic?
Fertility treatments involve fertilising eggs with sperm outside the body. In simple IVF, a number of eggs are “harvested” from the mother’s ovaries, and a sample of sperm obtained “fresh” from the father, or thawed from a frozen sample stored earlier. This is immediately combined with the eggs in a laboratory dish and hopefully embryos will develop, which can then be placed back into the mother. In a busy clinic, the laboratory staff will be responsible for combining the right sperm with the right eggs for several couples every day. Once they have done this, they have to make sure that the right resulting embryos are put back into the woman. Sometimes, embryos can be stored for later use – so staff have to make sure they thaw the right ones when the time comes. No genetic tests are carried out to check – and obviously all embryos look the same – so staff are reliant on correct labelling of eggs, sperm and embryos. Q: Is this the first case of its kind in this country? A: Fertility exp
