Fete Lifestyle Magazine April 2020 - Spring & Thoughtfulness | Page 70

the embryo in a lab, Vios is one of the first clinics to begin using InVoCell, an FDA-approved fertility treatment that uses a woman’s own body as an incubator during fertilization and early embryo development. The process begins with mild ovarian stimulation that uses fewer fertility medications than other IVF treatments. Once the eggs have been retrieved from the female, the sperm and egg are combined and transferred into the InVoCell device. InVoCell is then placed in the woman’s body to allow fertilization and incubation to occur. After five days, doctors remove the InVoCell device and implant the embryo in the woman’s uterus.

The treatment also offers a unique experience for female same-sex couples where one partner can undergo the egg retrieval process and incubate the embryos with the InVoCell, and then the embryos can be transferred to the other partner who will carry the pregnancy. InVoCell is a less invasive, lower cost option to other IVF methods.

Currently there is no method to assess a women’s eggs just by looking at them inside the IVF lab. Even embryologists don’t have a standard scoring system (which is different than embryos which are routinely graded by their development and appearance). Toronto based start-up Future Fertility has created the world’s first fully automated egg-scoring algorithm that Vios is now offering to patients in their Chicago-West Loop lab.