Clínica Santa María Centro especializado en Técnicas de Reproducción Humana

Just as in IVF, various transferable embryos can be produced using ICSI. However, as explained previously, due to the risk of multiple pregnancies only 2 or 3 embryos are transferred in Santa María Clinic.

The embryos that are not transferred can be cooled to very low temperatures, frozen and stored in tanks of liquid nitrogen where they can stay frozen ready for future attempts.

Despite the fact that pregnancy rates are not as high as with “fresh” embryos, in Santa María Clinic many children, produced from the transfer of frozen embryos, have and continue to be born.

The embryo freezing process takes approximately 3 hours. The embryos are in sequence with a concentrate of a special solution called cryoprotector. This solution protects the embryos during the freezing process.

Each embryo is carefully put into a sterile “straw” which is labeled with the full name of the patient, IVF number or date of birth and date of freezing. The straws containing the embryos are placed in the freezing machine and slowly cooled to be later transferred to the liquid nitrogen tanks in which they will stay frozen at a very low temperature.

These embryos can be stored for up to 5 years.