During IVF treatment, the remaining healthy embryos after embryo transfer are frozen to give a chance to future pregnancies. If you have a disease that requires medical treatment that may affect your fertility, you may want to preserve your embryos for transfer at the end of your treatment.
In our clinic we use a flash-freezing technique called vitrification which dehydrates and freezes the embryos instantaneously providing the best survival rate upon thawing. During vitrification, cryoprotectants are added at a high concentration while the oocyte is at room temperature. To further protect against ice-crystal formation, an extremely rapid rate of cooling is used. To achieve these rapid cooling rates, oocytes are placed in small volumes of cryoprotectants and exposed directly to liquid nitrogen at -196 0C.
After being frozen, the embryos are moved into long term storage tanks and are available for your use whenever you’re ready.
If you have diminished ovarian reserve, you may need to save your embryos by freezing them for future pregnancy.