India’s first ‘Vitrified Frozen Oocytes’ child born in Ahmedabad

The Ahmedabad based Bavishi Fertility Institute has achieved first pregnancy and childbirth of India, with the help of vitrified frozen oocytes within six months.

“Oocyte i.e. Female gamet is very fragile, and is very difficult to handle. It succumbs to any adversities. Scientists world over have tried hard to freeze the oocytes. Unfortunately the available technique of conventional freezing – slow freezing was not proving very successful. Very few centers could achieve pregnancy and successful child birth with frozen oocytes frozen by conventional method” explained Dr Himanshu Bavishi, Director, of Bavishi Fertility Institute, Ahmedabad.

“Against millions of children born through IVF using fresh oocytes, the number of children born through IVF from frozen oocytes remained in few hundreds only. First pregnancy and child birth of India was recorded with slow freezing in 2008 after 4 years of efforts” informed Dr. Falguni Bavishi, Co-promoter Director at the institute where two more pregnancies have been achieved with vitrified frozen oocytes after this first successful child birth.

Oocyte (eggs) freezing is difficult because Female gametes – oocytes (eggs) are very fragile. They never come out of female body naturally. It is difficult to take care of them invitro (outside of the body). Many years of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) has developed very good techniques, culture media and disposable materials for handling this very sensitive gametes.

“For freezing oocytes, we take them to –196oC temperature. The life remains suspended at this temperature. This temperature is maintained till we want to preserve it. When we defreeze (thaw) the oocytes and bring them to normal temperature, they become live and viable again” added Dr. Himanshu Bavishi.

All our body tissue including oocytes, contains water as a major part. When water is frozen it forms ice crystals. It expands and breaks the wall – damages the cell. This damage is more severe when the cells are at a crucial development phase. Hence with the conventional technique of Oocyte freezing survival rate and pregnancy rate were poor.

“New technique of freezing – vitrification, is a method of quick freezing – flash freezing. Different chemicals and process is used. It avoids crystal formation and resulting damage. It converts the fluid directly into a solid state just like a glass. Crystals are not formed in vitrification technique” explaining the technique, said Dr. Falguni Bavishi.

“Vitrification is more recently used for freezing embryos at different stages. After initial success with embryo freezing scientist tried to freeze oocytes with the same technique. Pioneering work was done in Japan. After the stabilization of technique, a few more centers in very limited countries have started doing Oocyte freezing by vitrification since last less than 2 years. The possibilities are really many, if we can freeze and defreeze (thaw), the gametes without damaging their genetic material and fertilizing capacity,” stated Dr. Himanshu Bavishi.

Oocyte freezing was started, at Bavishi fertility Institute in July 2008, Thawing and using them for pregnancy was attempted in Nov-2008. The first pregnancy is confirmed in last year in December.

Sperm (male gamete) freezing is successfully practiced since many years and millions of babies are born with the help of frozen sperm. Child is successfully born even with sperm frozen 22 years before.

Oocyte freezing is more helpful as fertility of women is only for a few years, against fertility of man, which normally lasts for life time.

Oocyte can be frozen if they are in more then required in an IVF cycle. They can be used if the first attempt becomes unsuccessful. Oocytes can be frozen to produce another child in future. Frozen oocytes can be transported across the glob if the female partner cannot travel herself. Oocytes can be frozen to preserve the fertility of a woman before going for cancer treatment, destructive operations etc. Oocytes can be frozen to preserve fertility before menopause, or at a young age for future fertility. Oocytes can be frozen for oocyte banking, for oocyte donation, or for research.