Transferring embryos that test normal may help lower the chance of miscarriage, but the risk is never zero. But, it can also be stressful when you have a transfer of an embryo that tested normal and it doesn’t result in a pregnancy. IVF success can be affected by many other things that we don’t yet understand.

Your healthcare team can walk you through the results and help you make decisions about your next steps.

Diseases can be passed down in different ways, depending on the disease and how many copies of the gene the child inherits. A child gets one gene from one parent and one gene from the other. What is passed down from each parent determines whether or not the child gets the mutation and is affected by the disease.

The preimplantation biopsy procedure itself doesn’t introduce any genetic errors. Most embryos are biopsied about 5 to 6 days of development. By this time, the cells can be taken from the outer layer that will become the placenta. The embryo may be frozen at this point to allow time for the testing.

The first choice is who or what to test. Genetic testing can be done on the people who want to have a baby, the embryos before they are transferred, or the fetus after a woman gets pregnant.

Genetics is the study of how traits and characteristics are passed from parents to their children. Genetic testing helps us understand who is at risk for passing or receiving those traits. This video will talk about basic genetic biology, how traits are passed and inherited, and common types of genetic testing.