Fact checking

[mikkyr]

My doctor mentioned to me that an uneven cell embryo is considered abnormal. Is this true? I know it makes sense that 1 divides to 2 and 2 to four and four to eight.

But I had one 9 and 10 cell embryo on my last day 3 transfer ....
Just curious.

@mikkyr I was told that they are looking for anything between 6 and 10 cells on day 3 (but that 8 cells is optimum)

Thanks but between 6 and 10 includes 7 and 9 which are odd numbered.... I just can’t really find any evidence of why he has said this and it’s bugging me because he also said that my husbands vasectomy will likely cause him testosterone deficiency and a reduced sex drive. Both of which are debunked multiple times if you do any research.
I’m tearing my hair out with this doc.

@mikkyr as far as I understood it when the embryologist explained it to me was that 8 cells statistically has the highest chance whilst the other numbers between 6 and 10 (including odd numbers) do still have a fair chance, it's just 8 is the highest statistically. The amount of fragmentation also plays a part. However no statistic can tell you whether that individual embryo is viable - I've had perfect looking hatching blastocysts transferred in the past and still no baby!

@mikkyr What your doctor said sounds rather odd. I'd just gotten a call from my clinic today to report (d+3) on the development of the embryos. She said all of them are rated Grade 1, and mentioned that there's a 9-cell embryo and an 11-cell embryo. She said they're all coming along nicely and didn't highlight there being anything unusual with the odd-celled embryos.

And I echo the point another poster made; my clinic also said that normally they are looking for 6 to 10 cells at this stage. Nothing about odd-numbers being bad.

Thank you so much for your replies

My embryologist said even cell division was the best indicator of a healthy/normal embryo. 8 cells also being the optimum on day 3.

5 or below cells are considered to have a low chance and also 10+ could indicate abnormality as they should neither be too slow or too fast to divide cells

Hi @mikkyr and @indigocloud

I’m embryo batching due to age and mfi. I just wondered if you had any success with those that were 9 cells at day 3. Thanks