How to bring home your baby

Inspire IVF has recently opened a new state of the art IVF clinic at the Ploenchit Centre in Bangkok, offering Thais and the expat community access to the latest technologies and procedures available in Assisted Reproduction.

The clinic and its results are world class, and the staff at Inspire IVF are Internationally trained. All IVF treatments are available, including western methodologies, introduced in conjunction with overseas expert clinicians. The clinic has its own in house Preimplantation Genetic Testing Laboratory, enabling clients to have their embryos tested for genetic and hereditary diseases.

Inspire IVF is the first private clinic in Thailand to be a member of the Oncofertility Consortium, a US based organisation which offers fertility treatment and preservation for patients with cancer.

Written by Dr Patsama Vichinsartvichai, MClinEmbryol. Medical Director, Inspire IVF)

A series of unfortunate events

This is a tragic true story that you may have heard, seen, or even played part in once in your lifetime. In society, the force for gender equity has pushed women to have a higher education and pursue success in their career.

The decision to get pregnant and raise a family for many was put in the long-term file. Without realising, their fertility lifespan was ticking away and their chance to conceive naturally became almost impossible.

Jane is a perfect example. She’s 43 and works in cosmetics. She and James have been married for 7 years. He’s a business entrepreneur at the top of his game. They seem like the perfect couple. The only thing missing is the laughter of children. They sought professional help from several infertility centres before they came to Inspire IVF. They had almost run out of hope. Last October they came to us wishing to give it another try.

I can’t imagine how many tears they cried. How many stressful moments their lives underwent. This pain may take their lifetime to heal.

The solution

A successful pregnancy requires the proper function of several organs in both partners. Figuring out the cause of infertility can be difficult.

It should always start with a careful medical history investigation and a physical examination. From Jane and James’ previous treatments, I specifically looked at her uterine cavity with our unique 3D vaginal sonography to see if there was any congenital anomaly there. Her womb was OK. At 43 she still had 8 follicles from both ovaries which is quite satisfactory. In summary, the only possible culprit here is the embryo’s chromosome.# Unlike men who have stem cells to produce new sperm throughout their life, women are born with a limited number of eggs. Older is not better, but worse here. Not only are the number of eggs lower, the quality has also decreased. Women like Jane might have over 80% of eggs with abnormal chromosomes.

So, the chance to conceive is very slim, even with IVF. How can we convert Jane and James’ hope into reality?

What more can we do?

Age is nothing but a number at Inspire IVF

Over recent years, the age of accelerated innovation has helped us a lot. The much simpler way to cope with the problem of chromosome number abnormality, or even genetic diseases, is to test the embryos before they implant. We can count the number of chromosomes in each individual embryo and target the abnormal genes that cause genetic diseases even before it happens with Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT). With proper selection and finely-tuned technology, an accurate result and proper embryo selection can be carried out. Bringing a healthy child home can be expected.

It is commonly known that older aged women have a higher rate of eggs with an abnormal number of chromosomes. This is the most common cause of nonimplantation of embryos, miscarriage, and some syndromes (such as Down syndrome, Edward syndrome, Turner syndrome). We use SNP array and Karyomapping technology to test the number of chromosomes, and precisely map the gene of interest, so only euploid chromosome embryos without genetic diseases are put back.

That’s why age is nothing but a number since only normal chromosome embryos are implanted in a similar fashion to in younger women. This is what we offered Jane and James, accompanied with our tailored stimulation protocol and dedicated international standard laboratory environment.

Those 8 follicles were stimulated and 6 mature oocytes were retrieved. 4 beautiful blastocysts were produced and biopsied to test. As expected, only 1 blastocyst had a normal set of chromosomes. They were disappointed.

In my consultation room before the beginning of their frozen embryo transfer cycle, I let them see the whole situation from another perspective. There is only one perfect embryo here but you want just one child. An excess of embryos may be unnecessary. The frozen embryo transfer was carried out now she carries an 8 week pregnancy and looks forward to meeting her new family member in August.

“On your most important journey, our inspiration will guide your way”

Inspire IVF clinic: Ploenchit Centre. 5th floor, suite no. 05 -10 B, Sukhumvit Soi 2, Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110. Phone: +66(0)2-251-8666 E-mail: [email protected] Line ID: @inspireivf