Our commitment to the highest standards includes our clinic as well as the IVF laboratory. Understanding the safeguards in place behind the scenes will hopefully provide comfort to any patients concerned about proceeding with IVF, fertility preservation or storing with us.
Understandably, some OC Fertility and OC Biogenix patients have questions or concerns regarding the measures taken within the IVF lab to ensure their precious tissue is cared for appropriately.
We want to be as transparent as possible regarding our minimum standards and policies. They include:
Security Systems
- Our lab is equipped with a state of the art alarm system able to identify issues with power failure—allowing the back up generator to be utilized to ensure all incubators and nitrogen tanks are functioning at all times.Every storage tank has their own alarm system carefully monitoring the internal temperature at all times, with an alarm identifying if any variations occur ensuring stored tissue is safe.
- Additional alarm systems are present to assess the gas concentrations within the incubators as well as the temperature within the incubator and refrigerators - because embryos require a carefully controlled environment.
Quality Assurance Measures
- All materials and reagents utilized within the IVF lab in direct contact with human tissue undergo internal quality control testing using MEA (Mouse Embryo Assay) to ensure they are nontoxic to growing embryos.
- Culture media has its pH levels confirmed prior to being utilized.
- Daily monitoring and checks of temperature, gas concentration, liquid nitrogen levels within the IVF laboratory.
Identification Standards and Protocols
Each interaction with human tissue involves appropriate sample and patient ID by two trained lab staff members at each step of the laboratory process, including:
- Oocyte identification at egg retrieval
- Sperm processing
- Insemination of eggs
- Embryo check
- Embryo biopsy
- Embryo freezing
- Embryo/egg/sperm thaw
- Embryo transfer
Safety is always a priority for our patients, as well as protecting their eggs, embryos, and sperm at OC Fertility + OC Biogenix.
Author
Dr. Nidhee Sachdev
Nidhee Sachdev, MD has trained among the most prestigious and diverse medical programs in the country, including fellowship training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the prestigious New York University (NYU) Langone Fertility Center in New York City where she conducted research on preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) and the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she earned the academic distinction of chief resident in obstetrics and gynecology, and trained under a top recurrent pregnancy loss expert. Dr. Sachdev is passionate about providing individualized, collaborative patient care. She started her medical career right here in Orange County, earning her Doctor of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine.
