Interests of pregnancy follow-up in cows after embryo transfer : special focusing on IVP & NT

In this report, pregnancies were obtained after extreme in vitro conditions- IVM/F/C of the donor embryos, - IVM, enucleation and artificial activation of the recipient oocytes, - nuclear transfer and - IVC of the reconstituted embryos. Even if the incidence of this syndrome is relatively low after embryo transfer, a possible increasing of its occurence cannot be excluded in correlation with an incomplete maturation of oocytes at the time of fertilization, smaller follicles giving non competent or partially competent oocytes. An other explanation of this syndrome resulting in the higher variation in newborn calves weight may be also partly explained by the in vitro conditions. The gametes and/or embryos may be submitted to media containing embryotoxic substances. In the other hand, gametes and/or embryos may not found embryotrophic substances in the media like growth factors...
Owing to this phenomenon, strict recommendations should be followed concerning rigorous follow-up of pregnancies obtained after transfer of IVM/IVF/IVC or cloned embryos by pregnancy proteins (PSPB, PAG...) or hormone (placental lactogen, estrone sulfate) assay and, after birth, macroscopic examinations of newborn, cord and caroncules.