It is important for us to know what is conventional IVF or standard IVF.  It is nothing but co-incubation of the gametes or mixing of the sperm and the eggs in a culture dish containing culture medium and allowing them to fertilize.  In those cases where we think you know sperm parameters are normal, I put in you know, commas because, you know, that is something, you know, I will be talking about a little later.

The progress of IVF since the time the first IVF baby was born the earlier days the practice was to mix the gametes, leave in the incubator, check for fertilization 18 to 20 hours later and even now actually in some of the centers the practice continues.  However, there is another alternative which I guess most of them are practicing now wherever they are continuing to do conventional insemination, which is short co-incubation, which means you expose the gametes for 2-3 hours and then you separate the eggs from the cumulus and then culture further or check for fertilization a few hours later.

Whereas in short co-incubation, we expose it for 2 to 3 hours only during which they can enter the oocyte so which means it is not necessary to keep the sperms together with the oocytes overnight which can have deleterious effects.  Now if you look at how many sperms you need for prolonged co-incubation, it can be in the range of 50,000 to 100,000 and this depends on the semen parameters particularly the morphology of the spermatozoa.  Whereas for short co-incubation, it has been more so that more sperms can reach the corona radiata where it can stay and then, you know, reach the zona pellucida or you can even, you know, do high insemination concentration, few drops of the prepared sample and then leave it for less than two hours and then separate it because there is always a risk with high insemination concentration of more than one sperm entering the oocyte. The prematurity rate, low birth weight, and perinatal mortality rates are similar to IVF when you compare ICSI babies and slightly higher for those for spontaneous pregnancies so any ART procedure that you do is probably slightly higher compared to spontaneous and naturally conceived pregnancies.

A few other questions to be answered include:

• Now does ICSI benefit?
• Are there any, you know, abnormalities in the cytoplasm?  What is the zona like?
• what are the risks independent of ICSI?
• What about the viruses?  What about the trions?
• What are the long-term consequences?

For detailed answers to these and other questions you might have on

Is Conventional IVF still relevant?, enroll for live lectures byDr. Suresh Kattera (Director, Asia Pacific Advanced Fertility Centre, Bangalore, India, Director, Asia Pacific Institute of Embryology, Mysore, India, Scientific Director, Pearl Singapore Fertility Centre, Chennai, India), here, https://docmode.org/is-conventional-ivf-still-relevant-dr-suresh-kattera/