FERTILITY TREATMENT: GAMETE INTRA FALLOPIAN TRANSFER (GIFT)
Your egg is mixed together (not fertilised) with your partner’s sperm and put back into the fallopian tubes so that fertilisation takes place where it would happen naturally anyway.
Who Should Have It?
GIFT can only be used when a woman has open and healthy fallopian tubes.
What Happens?
The use of the drugs is identical to IVF but the difference is that the egg retrieval is done by a laparoscope (telescope) through the abdomen and so a general anesthetic is needed. A maximum of three eggs are put back in the fallopian tube.
The other difference between GIFT and IVF is that fertilisation, if successful, takes place inside the body. GIFT is more invasive and expensive than IVF.
Success Rate
There are no official success rates for GIFT treatment because it does not come under the HFEA which only monitors techniques involving an embryo outside the body.
One clinic estimates that GIFT is approximately one and a half times more successful than IVF because fertilisation takes place inside your fallopian tubes and the embryo does not reach the womb until approximately seven days later, as nature intended. (As we have seen, IVF fails most commonly at this crucial implantation stage.)
Frozen Eggs
Any excess eggs from a GIFT procedure can be fertilised with the sperm outside the body, as in IVF. This makes it possible to see whether fertilisation actually takes place, and the embryos can be frozen.
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