EmbryoScopes with a mixed atmosphere

For an even greater chance of successful fertilisation, we decided to start using a mixed atmosphere in our EmbryoScopes to more closely approximate the environment in a woman's uterus.

Most laboratories today still cultivate embryos in an environment with a high oxygen content (20%), which negatively affects their development, quality and viability. In the natural environment, the oxygen concentration in the womb is between 2% and 8%.

The high concentration of oxygen in the culture medium induces the formation of oxygen radicals, which cause oxidative stress that leads to poor embryo development and increases the degree of fragmentation. In contrast, a reduced concentration of oxygen dramatically increases the number of embryos that reach the blastocyst stage. The number of pregnant women and number of babies born also increases. In addition, a larger number of blastomeres are observed on the third day of development, which is a very desirable effect at this stage (Kasterstein et al., 2013).