Are 6 eggs enough for IVF?

That will depend on the age of the patient. If the patient is younger than 35, it’s very likely that if we have 6 eggs, we may end up with 2 or 3 good embryos with good implantation chances. If the patient is over 40-42, probably most of these eggs are going to have genetic issues, and we may not get a lot of embryos, or the embryos that we get may have genetic issues.

That’s why the older the patient is, the more eggs we need because we’re going to have fewer embryos or embryos with a higher genetic risk.

So for a patient younger than 35, 6 eggs seem like a good number. If you are older than 40, 6 eggs do not seem to be enough.

Six eggs may be enough if all the eggs are good quality so as an egg bank we recommend for our patients that want to go through the egg donation process to obtain 6 eggs because we know those eggs are from young ladies and they are very good quality eggs. This this number of eggs should be enough to produce a good number of blastocyst for transfer, however if you’re using your own eggs in a fresh cycle, then it is important again, as mentioned before, that those eggs, if there is only 6, produce good quality embryos and of course it takes sperm and the egg to produce good quality embryos. It is also dependent on the quality of the sperm that is available for the fertilization of those eggs. We know some women have got pregnant with one or two eggs as well but that’s not very common and that’s something that doesn’t happen all the time.
We wouldn’t want to go through IVF with just one or two eggs especially if you’re an older patient. We know women from the age of 35, the quality of their eggs start decreasing and above 40 certainly quantity and quality decreases. It is important to have a good number of eggs that are good quality that can fertilize and develop good embryos.

If we have six mature eggs we can do IVF or ICSI, it depends if we have a patient with previous IVF failures with we’ve seen in this case, it depends on the age as well, and they quality of the sperm (the concentration and the motility), but yes six can be an awkward number, some studies say that 12 is the best number in order to have more possibilities; because if you have more, you have more possibilities of course.

Six eggs is definitely enough for IVF if that’s what you’ve managed to produce. Quality over quantity – you’re much better off having six eggs than 60 eggs and quality over quantity for sure. So six eggs is definitely enough for IVF. Yes.

The answer to this question is very challenging. In theory, even if we have one mature oocyte available we can achieve a live-birth via in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. The number of retrieved oocytes following ovarian stimulation represents a strong prognostic factor of achieving a live-birth and should always be co-evaluated along with maternal age as well as with infertility aetiology. To elaborate on that, recent studies estimate that the cumulative live-birth rate ranges from 35%-50% when 10-20 oocytes are retrieved, from 10%-30% when 4-9 oocytes are retrieved and finally, when less than 3 oocytes are retrieved, the respective cumulative live-birth rate is less than 10%. Interpretation of these statistical data should be carefully performed acknowledging that as maternal age increases the efficiency of the stimulation protocols, as well as the oocyte quality are compromised. Subsequently, the quality as well as the developmental dynamic of the embryos originating from these ‘’advanced-age’’ oocytes are compromised too. Moreover, infertility aetiology could per se affect embryo quality and thus the chances of achieving a live-birth. For example, embryos originating from the fertilization of 6 oocytes, obtained from a young couple presenting with tubal factor infertility, are more likely to be of higher developmental dynamic, in comparison to respective embryos originating from an equal number of oocytes retrieved from a couple presenting with severe male factor infertility. To summarize the answer to the question contemplating whether 6 oocytes are enough for IVF, the answer generally is ‘’yes’’, but when considering success rates, maternal age and infertility aetiology should always be co-evaluated.

Let me start by explaining that this depends on the age of the patient because it is going to be based on the quality of the eggs. Secondly, every patient responds differently to what we call the IVF funnel. An IVF funnel is this: not all the follicles we see at the beginning of a cycle respond to the medication, not all these follicles will come out in the egg retrieval, not all of these follicles will be mature, not all the mature ones will be fertilized, and not all the ones that are fertilized will arrive at the stage of blastocyst.

So if you ask if 6 eggs are enough to have a good outcome, it will always depend on the response of the patient to the stimulation. But to increase the number of follicles we do mild stimulation protocol for patients that do not respond to normal protocol stimulation, and still we go for IVF, for the egg retrieval and we do this because we know it will help.

In patients with low ovarian reserve where we have fewer eggs we would probably we would need more cycles. Sometimes we do more cycles as some patients accumulate eggs in different cycles. For sure, 6 eggs would be enough to try IVF.

It’s necessary to obtain eggs, oocytes, and sperm for artificial insemination. Oocytes will be fertilised in-vitro in an embryological laboratory. With the stimulated protocol, a woman receives not one egg in one menstrual cycle but several eggs at once, an average of 10-15 cells. In this case, by the time of puncture, the cells all or part of them may be immature. It depends on various factors; if we take a small number of oocytes, the probability of receiving embryos decreases. To get a good result, we need between 4 and 8 cells. Then even if some portion of the oocytes is not fertilised, there is still a chance for success.

Not each oocyte is suitable for fertilisation. To do this, they must reach a certain stage of maturity. During ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection), the sperm is injected directly into the oocyte. The day after the procedure, we can see which oocytes are fertilised successfully.

In the next five days, they will transform from zygotes to blastocysts. The success depends on the initial quality of eggs and sperm. Natural selection of this stage occurs both in the laboratory and invitro. That is why even healthy couples don’t always become pregnant in the first months of open sex life.

Sometimes, even one oocyte is enough for the successful IVF cycle. For example, in the natural cycle IVF programs, we work with one or two eggs that are obtained without ovarian stimulation. This approach is often resorted to for patients under the age of 30 or 35 with high cell fertility, where the indication of IVF is only the tubal factor or patients who do not accept hormone stimulation for themselves. But of course, the more cells we get for fertilization, the higher the chances of getting quality embryos.