A couple people I "know" online have had successful pregnancies with linings on the thin side. One friend said the doctor told her it was more about having a triple stripe than necessarily how thick the lining itself is.
That set me out on a journey- just what is a triple stripe? What other kinds of stripes can you have?
I found that the stripe is really not a "stripe" at all but is an illusion of a stripe on an ultrasound (see below for my ultrasound from yesterday- look at the area sectioned off by the turquoise lines). A triple stripe (or trilaminar endometrium) occurs when lining edges touch to form what looks like a "stripe" on an ultrasound.
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One thing I read online compared this to lips- you can have thin lips that touch or thick lips that don't touch.
I like visualizations, so I started thinking of a familiar visualization... peanut butter toast. Everyone wasn't raised on peanut butter quite like I was, but it's the first thing I thought of.
Meet uterus. It doesn't always have much of a lining, depending on the "season". It is mainly comprised of a muscular tissue called myometrium (the toast, in my illustration).
Sometimes uterus grows a lining (see peanut butter).The body should do this when it is taking hormones like e.strace. Sometimes the lining is thin...
... and sometimes thin linings touch, forming a "triple stripe"... 1) bread, 2) peanut butter, 3)bread... said triple stripe.
Sometimes people are lucky, and the lining is thick.
Somestimes the lining doesn't touch. There is no triple stripe effect. This is called a homogeneous lining.
Of course, both thick and thin lining can form a triple stripe, and both can form a homogeneous lining, too.
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| I am including a detailed diagram for the possibly one other person reading who may be interested in how this actually goes down. |
And now that we've had a biology lesson, let's switch to math.
What does all this mean for a transfer? Does thickness matter? What about the triple stripe?
Research shows a correlation (not necessarily causation) between lining and successful implantation. One study I read said a linings at the thin end of the spectrum (6 mm or less) had a 29.4% pregnancy rate whereas linings at the thicker end of the spectrum (up to 17 mm) had a 44.4% pregnancy rate (although it should be noted many studies believe anything thicker than 14 mm may cause problems). Another study "found that live birth rates were 1.9 times lower in women with endometrial thickness of 7-8 mm compared to women with thickness of 9-14 mm, after adjusting for confounding variables" (Source). "The endometrial pattern has been correlated with IVF success rates, with a trilaminar pattern shown to be more favorable than a homogenous luteal pattern" (Source). One study found "a positive relationship between a trilaminar endometrial morphologic pattern with a positive pregnancy test result, successful implantation, and ongoing pregnancy" (Source).
So it looks like there is a wide range of healthy linings. Thin linings still produce pregnancies, just at lower rates. A triple stripe is ideal, too.
To end today's lecture, I will leave you with a video that's the first thing that pops in my head when I think about stripes...
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