Has anyone tried vaginal microbiome testing before an IVF cycle?

[Hopefully2026]

Has anyone heard of the vaginal microbiome being tested for a positive IVF cycle? I've heard about a lady who successfully got pregnant naturally after a first DD being an IVF baby. She puts it done to having test and a consultation. I am desperate to have this cycle work. I'm trying anything and everything because I feel like it's going to be our last chance

I haven’t done IVF yet but I had vaginal microbiome testing as part of my husband’s fertility testing to check for any infection that might be affecting sperm quality. They used a service called screen me to do it.

There was nothing of note, they tested bacteria (good and bad) and fungal species. We were told there was nothing that would drastically impact anything but that he would give us some antibiotics before we do IVF as there was a small amount of bacteria that would be best to get rid of beforehand. According to ‘it starts with the egg’ I believe Metronidazole is the antibiotic that does not then affect the good bacteria as well.

I am considering uterine microbiome testing before IVF to test for anything that might affect implantation before IVF but I don’t know where I can get this done.

I heard that all antibiotics striped good and bad bacteria and should stay away from the traditional antibiotics before implantation.
Thanks for your post though, I'll look into screen me. I've seen another one called Avline Health, I went to an online session and the scientist there spoke about all the different types of good and bad bacteria and they seem really knowledgeable (and simple which is what I need right now as I prepare). So much conflicting information I don't know what to believe.
Any advice or guidance is welcome. I just want to give it my all for this cycle. Trying my hardest not to get obsessed but I can feel myself being drawn into a black hole!

I did a few of these, including Daye which is quick and comparatively cheap- it doesn't give loads of detail but includes major good and bad bacteria. I had previously done an Invivo test, which was done through a practitioner (an acupuncturist recommended) and when that came back lower on good bacteria I took probiotics, vaginal and oral, recommended by my clinic. My Dr said he wouldn't recommend antibiotics unless there was an infection as it strips good bacteria too

This is my concern that my microbiome is pretty well balanced right now and I don’t want to mess with it with antibiotics. I will have a see what Dr Ramsay says.

me and my DH did this with a fertility coach before IVF. It took a good 5 weeks to get the results. He had a higher than optimal DNA fragmentation rate in his sperm and the coach said this can be linked to microbiome. His sperm was very dominant for streptococcus which is linked to poor outcomes. For the sperm microbiome you don’t want any one bacteria to be dominant, you want a mix, and it’s the opposite for vaginal. Mine was fine. He took two weeks of antibiotics, his streptococcus dropped to a good ratio and when we retested his fragmentation rate that had improved too

I've had vaginal microbiome testing done and found low lactobacillus, I took probiotics for about 8 months and it didn't improve. My clinic then said they didn't trust the Daye testing the culture development was so quick so they did another more expensive test that took a few weeks for results and the results were pretty similar. Lactobacillus levels terribly low.

I have previously had a successful transfer but at that point did not test the microbiome. My clinic now say some research suggests a small cohort of people just have these kind of low levels as their normal. Anyway I have switched brands of probiotic and it has increased marginally, not enough to keep going at these rates. Need to decide next steps, originally my clinic had cautioned me against wasting an embryo but now with no significant improvement over time they think it possibly can't be improved further for me. I've had hysteroscopy and other tests done with no trace of any infections or concerning bacteria. Ironically for the hysteroscopy they insisted on a strong antibiotic so that probably blasted the few little good bacteria that I had.
I would recommend taking a probiotic on the basis that it can't do any harm, and going by my experience the Daye or other similar test did produce similar results to more expensive testing.