Genetic Diseases and IVF (Test Tube Baby) Treatment

Generally, when the fact that couples can not have children is being examined under the name of infertility, by means of a lot of number of application methods developed against certain genetic problems, we want every couple who applied to us reach their dreams. Although infertility is the most threatening and serious problem of our age, thanks to in vitro fertilization methods, it is far away from being a problem.

In vitro fertilization methods which are renewed and which increase their success rate day by day provide solutions to genetic diseases, which are another important problem. While genetic diseases and some chromosomal disorders prevent couples from having children, this method also supports couples who do not want to have children because of the risk of being a genetic disease carrier.

Thanks to the genetic diagnosis program applied for consanguineous marriages, genetic diseases, carrier couples and blood diseases, all of these issues will no longer be problem. In particular, the embryo having a problem in genetic coding have difficulty when adhering to the mother's uterus and it causes infertility problem with recurrent miscarriages. For this reason, successful in-vitro fertilization (test tube baby) treatments practices are carried out thanks to the fact that couples applying for treatment can have baby and the selection of embryos free from these diseases. In this way, the adherence chance of the embryo being placed in the uterus of the mother will increase, and will continue to develop healthily.

For which diseases and situations can the genetic diagnosis method be applied?

To mothers-to-be who are aged 35 and over,
To couples on who two or more in vitro fertilization methods were tried but pregnancy is not provided
For recurrent miscarriages,
To the balanced trans-location carrier couples
To the persons who have risk in terms of some single gene diseases, which its diagnosis is possible, such as Familial Mediterranean anemia, Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic fibrosis, SMA.
For the selection of HLA-compatible embryos with family members,
To couples who had a child with a genetic disease in previous pregnancies,
To mothers having chromosomal disorders and pregnancy history
To gonadal mosaicism cases (the genetic test results of couples are normal in spite of having two or more babies with identical abnormalities)
TESA cases (cases associated with severe male infertility)
Poor responders (cases that respond insufficiently to the hyper-stimulation protocol)
It is administered to couples carrying diseases varying by sex.

What is preimplantation genetic diagnosis?

During in vitro fertilization (test tube baby) treatment, treatment is launched especially by considering the family histories of couples. If there are serious ex-disease histories and genetic disease in the family, Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is applied. This screening program initiates the pregnancy process by doing genetic tests of embryos, determining only the healthy embryos and transferring the embryo to uterus of the mother. In short, by means of this genetic diagnostic application, the genetic problems of the patient or carrier couples are identified, healthy embryos are selected and thus, couples are provided with having baby with free of diseases. If there is case for you that requires a PGD test, your doctor will tell you that you need to have this test done.

What diseases can be detected with PGD?

Hemophilia
Tay-sachs disease
Cystic fibrosis
Sickle cell anemia and fragile X syndrome
Muscular diseases such as neuromuscular dystrophy
Down syndrome and some other chromosomal diseases can also be diagnosed by preimplantation genetic diagnosis.

What are the advantages of preimplantation genetic diagnosis?

First of all, it also provides that couples who carries disease have a healthy child.
It prevents multiple pregnancy rate and reduces birth-related complications to a minimum.
It seriously reduces the medical interventions against the problems that may be encountered in the pregnancy process.
It reduces the rate of miscarriage during the pregnancy.
It increases the success of in vitro fertilization methods.
It prevents the material and moral losses which revealed as a result of failures, by means of successful application.

What is the purpose of PGD?

Against the risk that couples applying for IVF treatments transfer genetic diseases to their children, it is aimed to determine these diseases when baby is embryo and to provide couples having healthy children. Today, there are a lot of IVF methods applied successfully against many problems that prevent couples from having baby through natural ways. The most important of these is the application of PGD, which reduces the birth rate of children having disabilities and diseases, as well as which reduces recurrent miscarriages caused by genetic diseases. In addition, it enables identification and separation of possible genetic disorders in embryos in couples to whom in vitro fertilization methods will be applied due to infertility.