Many girls, especially those who faced the infertility problem, probably heard about the importance of the size of a female egg, denoted in mm, which is at different stages of the menstrual cycle ambiguous. This is indeed an important parameter, but it is only with terminology that ordinary people have an error.
In fact, the term "size of a mature female ovum" is nothing more than the size of the follicle, in which the egg itself is located. It is it that increases during the menstrual cycle and its changes are monitored with the help of an ultrasound machine. To understand this, it is necessary to know what size an egg is in women - and this is neither more nor less than 0.12 millimeters.
The egg is the largest cell of the female body, in comparison with it all the others are just microscopic. For example, the size of the sperm, due to which fertilization takes place, is almost 85 thousand times less.
What determines the size of the follicles with the eggs inside?
In the ovary, there are small transparent inclusions, which sleep until puberty occurs. Each month, one of these points (the follicle with the egg) increases in size and eventually bursts, releasing the egg to meet with the sperm.
The size of the ovule, or rather, the follicle varies by the day of the cycle. That is, its growth is affected by hormones. In the first (early phase) several follicles start developing simultaneously, but at some point one of them outruns the others and when it reaches a size of 15 mm, we can already talk about its dominance - it is called the dominant follicle. The rest are reversed (atresia).
But what is the size of a fertilized egg, you can learn from the same verdict of ultrasound. Immediately after fertilization, it increases slightly - only 0.15 mm. Cell division inside is constant, the ovum increases by a few tenths of a millimeter every day and by the 6-7th week the experienced gynecologist can grope the enlarged uterus by the method of palpation.