Does embryo biopsy damage embryos?

On neonatal outcomes, ESHRE states that so far there is no indication that embryo biopsy causes an increased risk of adverse neonatal outcome. That is reassuring as far as it goes. There is a broader point ESHRE makes alongside it, which is worth knowing rather than hiding: children born after assisted reproduction as singletons do differ in some respects from spontaneously conceived children. What is unclear is whether that reflects the underlying infertility, the IVF procedures themselves, or both. This is not specific to biopsy, and it applies to IVF generally. ESHRE also notes there is uncertainty about the long-term impact of IVF and PGT, and encourages clinics to collect follow-up data on babies born after treatment. You can reasonably ask whether your clinic participates in such follow-up. On the embryo itself in the laboratory: biopsy is a technical procedure and a small number of embryos may not survive it or may not survive the freezing that usually follows. Your clinic should be able to tell you their own figures for this. The practical question is not whether biopsy is risk-free — nothing is — but whether the information it provides is worth it in your specific situation. For a couple with a known serious genetic condition, that calculation is very different from a couple considering PGT-A without a specific indication. Ask your clinic what proportion of biopsied embryos in their programme survive to transfer.