Although it happens very infrequently, it seems that about once a year you hear in the news of an IVF mix-up. For those of us entrusting doctors to ensure the accuracy of the procedures, this can be very scary. There have been reports of black babies born to white families and vice versa, children who are not genetically related to their birth parents as determined later due to medical procedures, and recently a couple from Wales who went to have their cryo-preserved embryo transferred only to find that it had been transferred to another woman. In this heartbreaking case the woman who had received the wrong embryo took the “morning after” pill to terminate a possible pregnancy and the couple with the frozen embryo was left with no options to try to have a second child.
When undergoing my IVF procedure, this was actually one of the things that I stressed about. I just felt that with so many steps and pieces that had to fall in to place that it would not be out of the realm of possibility for an error to occur. I mentioned in a previous post that in my disoriented state on the day of the retrieval I repeatedly asked everyone I came in contact with if my husband had provided his “sample.” When I was rolled into the back my husband was at my side and nobody had said anything about where he would go and when so it was on my mind. We joked later that if they did use the wrong sperm it wouldn’t really be that big of a deal because we would have the baby that we so desperately wanted and could maybe make some money because of the wrongdoing. We have never had the children tested but since they look exactly like my husband I am pretty sure that his sample did indeed make it to the right place.
There are a number of safety procedures in place at clinics in the US and for the most part patients can be comfortable assuming that the treatment is using the appropriate sperm, eggs, and embryos. Typical protocols require two embryologists, witnesses, and an elaborate labeling, coding, or armband system combined with a number of checks and balances that ask the patients name and/or social security number. I do remember having my armband checked repeatedly during every part of the procedure and having to state my full-name many times.
Beyond this, there are also new devices being developed to help ensure that mix-ups do not occur. Currently a RFID (or radio-frequency identification device) is used at some clinics, especially overseas. The problem with this device is that because of temperature it can not be used with cryo-preserved embryos. A cryo-genic chip, or electronic ID tag that works in all temperatures has been developed and its use is slowly catching on. My opinion is that the safer the better because an error could be devastating in a lot of different ways in fertility treatment processes. The use of these tracking devices is not yet widespread, especially in the States, but it is good to know that there are strides being made to ensure, even more, that it is harder for errors to occur.
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