PGD is an extremely valuable tool that allows us to check for the viability of an embryo when inherited diseases are suspected or may be of high risk. Traditional methods for checking these types of diseases in order to obtain karyotypes (chromosome analysis), are done very late in a pregnancy and can be of high risk to the fetus and the mother. Although new advances in these fields have made these procedures safer, PGD has a unique advantage in that it is performed very early in the fertilization.
With PGD, we are able to do single cell extractions of the fertilized product so that our experts can analyze them in detail. In order to perform PGD, the couple must go through an IVF cycle. When we incubate the fertilized sample, our experts remove a cell and analyze it specifically looking for evidence that the fertilized product is carrying inherited diseases that are at risk of affecting your future baby.
If the fertilized embryo is in fact carrying a disease, we have the option of selecting another egg from the ones we collected and performing the fertilization process over again.
