Treatment for infertility that involves a female egg (ovum) donor, who volunteers to be inseminated with a man’s sperm; after the fertilized egg has been implanted in her uterus for a few days, the developing embryo is flushed out and implanted into the uterus of the man’s wife or female sex partner. For the procedure to work, the two women’s menstrual cycles must be in unison. No surgery is involved, but the donor faces two potential problems: the embryo may resist flushing, leaving her pregnant, or it may be flushed up into the fallopian tubes, causing a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and necessitating emergency surgery. Various legal questions need to be resolved, not the least of which is: which woman is the legal mother? Though this technique has long been used with animals, it is still so new among humans that its success rate and problem rate are not yet clear.
The implantation of an embryo or embryos into a woman’s uterus, typically 3 to 6 days after in vitro fertilization (fertilization outside the body). The procedure is performed with a small tube that is placed through the vagina into the uterus while the woman reclines on an examination table. Limited physical activity for 2 to 4 days is usually recommended. Pregnancy tests are given about 12 to 14 days after the procedure.
Embryo transfer is the process whereby the initial stages of procreation are produced outside the human body and completed in the uterus or womb. The procedure is also known as ‘embryo transplantation and ‘in vitro fertilization’ (IVF). It consists of extracting an ovum (or egg) from the prospective mother’s body and placing this in a dish where it is mixed with the male partner’s semen and nutrient fluids. After the ovum is fertilized by the sperm it is transferred to another dish containing a special nutrient solution. Here it is left for several days while the normal early stages of development take place. The early EMBRYO, as it has then become, is implanted in the mother’s uterus, where it ‘takes root’ and develops as a normal fetus.
Placement of embryos into the uterus through the cervix after in vitro fertilization (IVF) or, in the case of gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), into the fallopian tubes. Fertilization is usually done by placing the sperm and ovum in a special culture tube.