How and when to measure pH in IVF culture media: validation of a portable blood gas analyzer in two IVF culture dishes for time lapse and conventional incubators.

Purpose: Maintaining a stable pH at optimal level in human embryo culture media is crucial for embryo development but poses a challenge for all IVF laboratories. We validate analytically reliable conditions for pH measurement that are as close as possible to the embryo microenvironment during IVF.

Methods: This was a multicentric study.