Ichthyophis species deposit eggs in a chamber in damp soil close to a stream. The female coils around the clutch and remains with it through incubation, a period of weeks, during which she does not feed appreciably. Attendance is thought to reduce desiccation and fungal infection and to deter small predators; her skin secretions may contribute antimicrobial protection.
The genus also retains an ancestral life cycle that most caecilians have abandoned. Hatchlings are free-living aquatic larvae with external gills and a tail fin; they enter the stream, feed and grow, then metamorphose into burrowing adults. Many other caecilian lineages are viviparous or develop directly, skipping the larva entirely.
This is an area where confident-sounding statements should be resisted. Caecilian taxonomy is unsettled, several Ichthyophis species have been described only recently, and behaviour has been observed in a minority of them. Egg-guarding is documented for the genus, not confirmed species by species.