Laboratory

At The BabiesAndUs Fertility, IVF & ICSI Centre has two highly advanced laboratories in Mumbai, one at Lilavati Hospital and the other at Opera House. The Laboratory is equipped with sophisticated state of the art technology and is manned by highly trained personnel.

Operation Theatre

The Operation Theatre and the Laboratory are adjacent to each other. Both these communicate with each other through a window/ hatch, as well as an intervening door, which is kept closed during most of the procedures. This ensures that the eggs, which are being retrieved from the patient or the embryos that are being transferred back into the patient's womb, are not exposed to the detrimental effect of fluctuating environments. Our theatre is equipped with the latest anesthetic machines, oxymeters & cardiac monitors to constantly monitor the patient. This is backed up by one of the biggest intensive care unit and blood bank at the Lilavati Hospital.

The eggs are aspirated using well-crafted disposable CCD needles from France, with the help of high quality Vaginal Ultrasound. The suction force required to aspirate these eggs are generated by a special digital suction machine from Cook, Australia.

Lab Environment

Air quality in the lab is a very important factor for growing high quality embryos in the incubator. The air quality is improved by making use of special HEPA filters and special air conditioners. Furthermore our incubators are equipped with special CODA filters made in USA. These filters have been specially crafted so that they can be used in ART labs to yield better embryos and pregnancy rates. Additionally, both the labs are located on higher floors, thus avoiding the increased chances of contamination at ground levels. All our work in the lab is done in special sterile chambers called Laminar Flows, which provides a bacteria and dust free environment in which we can handle the eggs, sperms & embryos.

Microscopes & Micromanipulators

Both the labs have got stereo zoom microscopes from Nikon Corporation, Japan. Similarly, both labs are equipped with advanced, fully motorized Nikon Narishige Micromanipulator systems. The Nikon-Narishige system is the most widely used system, worldwide. In fact, ours is one of the few units in India, having two Micromanipulator systems. We are one of the leaders in Micromanipulation-ICSI, having performed more than 1000 cycles.

Incubators

The heart of the IVF Laboratory is the Carbon Dioxide Incubator in which the eggs are fertilized, the embryos are formed and the blastocysts are grown. These incubators maintain temperature at a steady 37ºC, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thus imitating the human body. Each lab has got three such Incubators from the world leaders Hareas from Germany. We have the latest Herea Cell Incubators, the newest incubator from Heraus. When opened, it has the ability to rapidly recover its environment. Furthermore it can be auto decontaminated by just pressing a button.

Microsurgical Diode Laser

The lab has the latest Microsurgical Diode Laser from Fertilase Company, Switzerland. In fact, we have the privilege of installing the first laser for IVF/ ICSI related work, in India. We have had numerous pregnancies following the new technique of Assisted Laser Hatching in India. We also make use of this laser beam to cut open the zona prior to performing PGD.

Preimplantation Genetic Equipment

We are one of the pioneers in the technique of Preimplantation Genetics, in India. We have the advanced Olympus fluorescent microscope from Japan. This is combined with automatic computerized Karyotyping Systems from Vysis, USA. We can now biopsy the embryo and analyze it for genetic defects with the new methods of FISH or PCR. Thus, in case of Hemophilia, we can find out the sex of the embryo and put back only the female embryos.

Semen & Embryo Bank

We have the facilities for embryo and semen freezing. Extra good quality embryos are cryopreserved for future use. The advanced computerized automatic freezer from Sylab, Austria provides excellent and reliable temperature gradient necessary for successful freezing, long-term storage and viable recovery of gametes. The embryos and sperms are maintained in liquid nitrogen containers at 196ºC. We have also started freezing testicular and ovarian tissue.

Disposables & Culture Media

We use special disposables imported from various companies worldwide:
Ovum pickup needle - CCD, France
Culture media - IVF Science Sweden or Medicult Denmark.
Plastics - Falcon, UK
Injection Pipettes for ICSI - Cook, Australia
Embryo Transfer catheters- Labotect Germany or CCD France or Wallace UK

All these are imported by courier and are used within the stipulated expiry period. These are disposed after one use. This not only maintains a high pregnancy rate, but also prevents transmission of diseases like HIV (AIDS) and Hepatitis B.