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Asked by jorgaliee to Claire, Greg, Jane, Jo, Nuruz, Vicki on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: General. This question was also asked by animallovinggirl, lwhite07.
Question: Does "In Vitro" mean artificial? Also, what is the full process of IVF?
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Vicki Onions answered on 17 Jun 2010:
“in vitro” literally means “in glass”, so something done in the lab in dishes or test tubes, thats where the “test tube baby” concept comes from – it is basically the opposite of “in vivo” which means “in life”. So yes it is an artificial process, in IVF the actual fertilisation and first growth part of the embryo is carried out in plastic dishes in the lab so this is an artificial environment.
Some of the other scientists may be able to give you a more accurate idea of the process of IVF. The process of IVF will differ depending on the cause of infertility (whether its the male or female). However in general terms, the woman is often given hormone treatment to get lots of eggs to develop to a mature stage (where normally is would be very few) during one cycle. The woman is then sedated and the eggs are collected by a surgical procedure. On the same day, the male partner produces a semen sample and the sperm from that are used to fertilise the eggs collected from the woman. The embryologist (the scientist who is trained to do the IVF) then monitors the eggs very closely to see which fertilise and form embryos – thse embryos which look to be of a good quality and developing well are then “reimplanted” or put back into the woman’s uterus (womb) and her hormone levels are then monitored closely to see if she becomes pregnant.
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Greg FitzHarris answered on 17 Jun 2010:
Hi,
literally ‘in viro’ means ‘in glass’ – its latin i think. In science in general, it tends to refer to doing something done in test tubes or dishes rather than in its natural setting.so, tghats basically a long-winded way of saying YES it means artificial.
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Claire O'Donnell answered on 17 Jun 2010:
In vitro means ‘in glass’ and referrs to the fact that teh eggs are fertilised in a glass petri dish in a lab instead of the more ususla location:)
The whole thing starts with the woman recieving daily injections of hormone to stimulate her ovaries to produce more eggs that she would usually do each month. She is carefully monitored during this time (about 2 weeks) to check that there are a good number of eggs maturing but being careful that her ovaries aren’t being overstimulated. If they were it can be very serious and affect her heart and lungs, (it’s called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome). Assuming everyhing is going to plan, once suffiient eggs are ready they are ‘harvested’ This involves the woman being sedated while a needle is carefully inserted into the ovary to suck out the eggs. Once this has been done they taken to the lab and in sterile conditions, they are carefully mixed with her partner’s sperm. The mixture is then placed in an incubator. After 24-48 hrs special scientists called embryologists (they’re trained in looking at newly fertilied eggs) examine the dish to see if any eggs have fertilised. If they have in some places they will replace one or two embryo’s in the woman’s uterus using a very soft plastic tube and a syringe. In some labs they wait until 3 days after fertilisation to replace the embryo. This is because at 3 days only the strongest embryos will have survived this long and so the chance of pregnancy is greatest, the down side is that not all couples embryos can get to that stage and so some embryologists replace embryos before three days hoping that by putting them back they might survive better. It’s something people have to decide take the chance that they’ll survice till 3 days with a better chance of a pregnacy as a result or put them back early in case they don’t make it to 3 days and accept that pregnancy is less certain.
Once that little lot is done, a few more drugs for the woman and fingers crossed!
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