
I am currently six weeks pregnant with a mosaiced embryo. What is that exactly?
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Being 6 weeks pregnant with a mosaic embryo is promising, but as already discussed, the loss/miscarriage rates are higher due to observing that percentage of abnormal cells in the embryo biopsy. More studies are now discussing different levels of mosaicism, where embryo biopsies that expressed a lower percentage of abnormal cells, typically implant and keep better than those with a lot of abnormal cells observed. To add to the different levels of mosaicism, there are also certain mosaicisms observed on different chromosomes that are better to transfer. For example, an embryo that is found to be mosaic for monosomy 1 (seeing some abnormal cells in the biopsy missing 1 of the 2 chromosome 1's) is better to transfer than an embryo found to be mosaic for trisomy 21 (seeing some abnormal cells expressing an extra chromosome 21). The monosomy mosaic is a better choice for transfer than the trisomy 21 because if the monosomy mosaic is in fact monosomy, it will not produce a live birth; where as if the trisomy mosaic was in fact trisomy, there is a real possibility of that embryo producing a Down Syndrome child. As Catherine mentioned, genetic counseling before transferring these types of embryos is highly recommended.