A latest study has suggested that the viability or squishiness of a fertilized egg indicates whether the IVF is going to be successful or not.

Stanford University researchers, who carried out the test, checked out the rigidity of hour-old fertilized egg as a genuine way for physicians to select the best embryos during in vitro fertilization.

The researchers reached a conclusion that the success of IVF lies in the feasibility of the fertilized egg. The study has appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

To conduct the study, the researchers applied a little amount of pressure to mice eggs using a small pipette nearly hour after fertilization. Then, the researchers noted down how much each egg got deformed. They placed the embryos in a standard nurturing liquid and examined it again at the blastocyst stage.

The researchers said that the eggs that had provided a definite range of squishiness have more chances of producing healthy, symmetrical embryos.

The embryos were shifted into female mice. As per the study, the embryos that showed squishiness had 50% more chances to result in a live birth as compared to embryos classified as feasible with the help of conventional techniques.

In the news release, Dr. Barry Behr, director of Stanford's IVF laboratory, said, "Although cancer and other diseases involved stiff tumors or tissues, our colleagues have been surprised that we can gain so much information from this simple little mechanical test”.

Dr. Behr added that it’s still surprising to think that squeezing an embryo on the day it is fertilized can tell if it is going to survive and eventually become a baby or not.

A latest study discovered that quite like a piece of ripe fruit, a human embryo possesses a certain squishiness that may provide clues to fertility clinic staff about its viability.