Here’s your IVF research roundup for October 2025. Each month, I highlight everything I’ve shared on Remembryo — including new IVF study summaries, popular social posts, answers to community questions, and a full list of research highlights with links and short summaries from my newsletter. The paywall is off for this post.
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🔗 Original studies are referenced in this post or within the linked Remembryo posts.
💡 Reminder: Terms underlined with a dotted black line are linked to glossary entries. Clicking these does not count toward your paywall limit.
Remembryo posts
Here’s what I covered this month on Remembryo. Click any image to read more.
Researchers in a 2024 study showed that by artificially removing the embryo's zona (shell) right after fertilization reduced fragmentation, improved blastocyst development, and led to live births in patients with repeated IVF failure, though the findings are still preliminary and need confirmation in larger trials. Read more.
Researchers in a 2025 study showed that women with endometriosis or adenomyosis had lower IVF success overall after 3 IVF cycles, with more differences in the first, fresh transfer. Read more.
A 2025 study of women with repeated IVF failure and unexplained infertility found that about 13% had mutations affecting egg or embryo development, mostly in the TUBB8 and PATL2 genes, suggesting that many “unexplained” cases may have underlying genetic causes. Read more.
A 2025 randomized trial found that men who took the combined antioxidant supplement Impryl for six months had no improvement in semen quality or pregnancy rates, and in some cases slightly worse outcomes, suggesting that routine antioxidant use may do more harm than good for some male infertility patients. Read more.
A 2025 study showed that male obesity was linked to slightly slower embryo development, poorer ICM quality, and a higher miscarriage risk in donor egg IVF cycles, suggesting that paternal weight can subtly influence embryo health and pregnancy outcomes. Read more.
A 2025 review found that sperm DNA fragmentation testing provides useful insight into male infertility and may help in select cases, but inconsistent evidence, lack of test standardization, and variable results limit its routine use in fertility care. Read more.
Using a new non-toxic imaging method, researchers watched living human embryos divide in real time and discovered that chromosome separation errors linked to mosaicism can arise even at the blastocyst stage, showing that mosaicism is a dynamic process rather than one confined to early development. Read more.
A 2025 study of single-blastocyst transfers found no increase in birth defects or adverse pregnancy outcomes when transferring poor quality embryos compared to good quality ones. Read more.
Top viewed posts on social
Here you can see the top 3 most popular posts for the month on Instagram, excluding the posts from above.
- When embryos stick to the catheter: New review compares IVF outcomes. A new meta-analysis found that cycles with embryo retention, when an embryo sticks to the catheter and must be reloaded, were associated with roughly 25% lower odds of pregnancy or live birth and a higher risk of ectopic pregnancy, based on mostly older retrospective studies. More recent data suggest that embryo retention is now rare and has less impact on outcomes, likely due to improved catheter design and transfer technique. Read the full study on Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics.
- Summer, winter, or spring: Timing doesn’t change IVF outcomes, study finds. A meta-analysis of nearly 160,000 fresh embryo transfers found no consistent link between season and IVF success, with small differences in certain climates likely explained by other factors. Since the evidence comes mostly from retrospective studies focused on fresh transfers, more research is needed, but the data suggest patients can proceed whenever they are ready because timing by season does not meaningfully affect outcomes. Read the full study on Frontiers in Public Health.
- 2020 annual European report shares data from ~1 million IVF cycles. In 2020, more than 900,000 IVF, ICSI, and frozen transfer cycles were reported across 41 European countries, representing a 14% drop from 2019 as the pandemic disrupted access to fertility care. Even with fewer treatments, pregnancy rates remained stable and the shift toward single-embryo transfer continued, bringing twin deliveries down to 10.9%. Read the full study on Human Reproduction.
And here’s the top 3 older Remembryo posts (based on Instagram story views). Click any image to read more.
A 2024 study compared successful and unsuccessful euploid transfers, finding that female age had no impact, while BMI, embryo quality and the type of FET used did. Read more.
Researchers in a 2024 study found that patients that have 5 consecutive euploid transfers had a cumulative live birth rate of 98.1%, suggesting that most cases of implantation failure are due to the embryo, and that true unexplained RIF occurs in less than 2% of patients. Read more.
Researchers in a 2022 study examined the influence of paternal factors, such as semen parameters, paternal BMI and age, on aneuploidy. Read more.
IVF in the news highlights
Each week in the Remembryo newsletter, I share short summaries of IVF-related stories that made headlines. Below are 5 leading headlines for the month, with the first two summarized:
- Donor eggs engineered with skin cell DNA fertilize and form blastocysts in lab. Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have found a way to make functional egg cells from donor eggs and skin cells, according to work published in Nature Communications. Most embryos stopped developing when these eggs were fertilized, but the proof-of-concept suggests it could one day help people with poor egg quality or allow same-sex couples to have genetically related children, though it remains many years from clinical use. Read more on OHSU.
- Trump’s new IVF proposal draws both praise and backlash. Last week, President Trump announced new proposals to make IVF more affordable, including a deal with drugmaker EMD Serono to lower fertility medication costs and guidance encouraging employers to add infertility benefits. The plan stops short of federal mandates or funding and has drawn mixed reactions, with IVF advocates calling it a modest step forward and conservative groups opposing the move on moral grounds. Read more on The New York Times or The Hill.
- At least 20 babies born through robotic IVF. Read more on The Washington Post.
- Embryologists get virtual help from AI systems. Read more on MIT Technology Review.
- Why doctors have so little data on pregnancy medications. Read more on Scientific American.
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IVF questions from the community
Here are select questions that I answered either in my Facebook group or on Reddit.
- Is Zymot effective in improving IVF outcomes? Generally, research has been mixed on the topic, with some studies showing improvements in IVF outcomes while others don’t. In terms of higher quality studies, the most recent RCT I know of for Zymot is one that showed no improvement in euploid rates, but did show a modest improvement in fertilization rates. There was no improvement in pregnancy outcomes. This was tested in the general public and not those with high sperm DNA fragmentation, who it’s mainly intended for. You can read more in my post Study assesses embryo euploidy rates after Zymot used to select sperm. Another RCT, which I didn’t review, found no difference in fert or pregnancy rates but improved the number of high quality blasts obtained (Yetkinel et al. 2018).
- Can aneuploid embryos lead to a live birth? Embryos that test as aneuploid have a very high chance of miscarrying or not implanting (Capalbo et al. 2022 estimated at 98% “lethality” rate). While this indicates that most aneuploid results will not succeed, PGT-A analyzes only a small biopsy from a much larger embryo, so in rare cases the sample may not represent the entire embryo. In those situations, the embryo may be a high-level mosaic rather than truly aneuploid and could still develop normally. Still, data is lacking on the transfer of aneuploid embryos, so it’s hard to know how common this is. A recent case report detailed the healthy birth of twins following the transfer of aneuploid embryos. You can read more in my post Embryos labeled aneuploid by PGT-A lead to healthy euploid twins.
- What’s the best embryo grade? Every embryo grade could result in a live birth, but those that have a higher grade have a higher chance vs those with a lower grade. Generally, embryos from day 5 that are more developed and good quality (AA) have the best chances. One study found that the embryo grade with the highest chance of live birth was a 5AA. You can read more in my post Study evaluates which embryo grades predict IVF success.
IVF research brief
🔒 The full research brief for the month begins below (paid subscribers only)
Each week I flag ~20 IVF studies I find most helpful. Some are covered in detail on Remembryo, but paying subscribers get short summaries and links to all of them, organized into categories like implantation, egg quality, PGT-A, etc.
Below is the full list of 66 short summaries and links for studies that weren’t featured on Remembryo (available to paying members only).
🔍 Sneak peek: 3 select summaries from the month
- This systematic review and meta-analysis found that women with a favorable vaginal microbiome, especially those dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus, had higher pregnancy and live birth rates and fewer miscarriages after assisted reproduction. Read more (full article)
- This systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 studies found that women who became pregnant after IVF had higher follicular fluid AMH levels than those who did not, suggesting it may be a marker of oocyte quality, though more research is needed before clinical use. Read more (full article)
- This systematic review and meta-analysis of 249 studies found that intrauterine adhesions are common after certain uterine surgeries, with risks ranging from 16% to 28%, and that gel barriers can lower adhesion rates while recurrence remains frequent even after adhesiolysis. Read more (full article)
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About Embryoman
Embryoman (Sean Lauber) is a former embryologist and the founder of Remembryo, an IVF research and fertility education website. After working in an IVF lab in the US, he returned to Canada and now focuses on making fertility research more accessible. He holds a Master’s in Immunology and launched Remembryo in 2018 to help patients and professionals make sense of IVF research. Sean shares weekly study updates on Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit regularly. He also answers questions on Reddit or in his private Facebook group.