{"id":1277,"date":"2020-01-22T15:30:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T15:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.theduff.co.uk\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2020-10-01T15:43:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T15:43:03","slug":"follicle-egg-zygote-difference-ivf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theduff.co.uk\/follicle-egg-zygote-difference-ivf\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the difference between<\/strong> a follicle, oocyte, egg and zygote?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WHEN YOU BEGIN FERTILITY TREATMENT, IT'LL BE “FOLLICLE THIS, FOLLICLE THAT, FOLLICLE THE OTHER.” <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, your doctors will drop the word from their vocabulary and start banging on about \u201ceggs\u201d instead. It\u2019s like \u201cfollicle\u201d suddenly became politically incorrect, and they decided that \u201cegg\u201d was the inoffensive alternative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except it\u2019s not like that at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 what\u2019s the deal with follicles, oocytes, eggs and zygotes?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Inside your ovaries are hundreds of thousands of follicles \u2013 and most of those follicles (about 90% of them) contain something called an oocyte (\u201coh-iss-site\u201d), which is an immature egg cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Follicle<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

During a \u201cnormal\u201d menstrual cycle<\/a>, some follicles will begin to grow and develop at the same time \u2013 and the oocytes within the follicles will develop too. One follicle (called the \u201cdominant follicle\u201d) will break ahead and start to grow much faster than all the others.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once that follicle reaches about 15\u201324mm in diameter, the oocyte inside it is pretty much ready to be fertilised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before it\u2019s fully <\/em>ready for fertilisation, that oocyte needs to break free from its follicle and make its way somewhere that the sperm will find it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various hormones will inform the ovary that it\u2019s time for the oocyte to be released, and at that point the oocyte will complete its \u201cmaturing\u201d process through a process called \u201cmeiosis\u201d. It will burst out of its follicle and leave the ovary. Now called an \u201cegg\u201d (or \u201covum\u201d, for those who like a bit of Latin), it will travel down the fallopian tube, ready to be fertilised by sperm swimming towards it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Egg<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If the egg is fertilised by sperm, it\u2019s now called a \u201czygote\u201d. The zygote contains all 46 of the chromosomes needed to become a fully fledged human, and it will continue to travel down the fallopian tube before coming to rest in the uterus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there you have it: <\/p>\n\n\n\n