Assisted Hatching-IVF-Missouri Center for Reproductive Medicine & Fertility

Assisted Hatching (AH) involves making a small hole in the zona pellucida (sugar-protein membrane) that surrounds the preimplantation embryo, making it easier for the embryo to "hatch" out of its shell. Hatching is typically performed when an embryo has developed to the 8-cell or blastocyst stage, about 4 hours prior to transfer into the uterine cavity.

Although hatching is a process that happens naturally prior to implantation, giving the process some extra help can improve outcomes in certain situations.

AH may improve implantation when embryos have a thickened zona pellucida or the patient is over 35 years of age, have an elevated day 3 FSH level or are undergoing frozen embryo transfer.

Actual image of an 8 cell embryo with a glass needle removing one cell for PGD