Egg Donation
The ability of any woman to produce a healthy and mature egg for pregnancy, and ultimately a baby, declines with age. This is because the number and quality of eggs diminish with increasing age until a point when it becomes impossible to produce any good quality egg. This happens any time after the age of 40. In some women, this can happen even at an earlier age, e.g. when the woman has had her ovaries removed surgically or she has received treatment for cancer by either radiation or anti-cancer drugs.
Replenishing ovarian reserve and restoring the ability of the ovaries to produce eggs once depleted has become an impossible task. Yet these groups of women strongly desire children of their own. The use of donor eggs has enabled many of these women to achieve the dream of having their babies.
Who may benefit from Egg Donation?
- A woman who is advanced in age i.e. in her 40s
- A young woman who has early or premature ovarian failure or insufficiency
- A woman affected by a genetic disease or a carrier of a genetic disease
- Cases with severe endometriosis
- A woman whose ovarian reserve is diminished as a result of damage caused by surgery on the ovaries or cancer treatment with radiation or anti-cancer drugs
- A woman whose previous IVF treatment failures are traceable to poor egg quality
Who are Egg Donors?
Egg Donors are young women who are willing to support the cause of women who are unable to produce eggs on their own to have babies. We only admit young women between the ages of 22 and 34 because we believe they are mature enough to understand the program, give consent, and at the same time produce sufficient, healthy, and mature eggs for the treatment. Donors are screened to assess their suitability and fitness for the egg donation program using their medical and psychosocial history. Blood samples are also taken for many tests including screening for infectious diseases.
Types of Egg Donors
1. Anonymous Egg Donors
The egg recipient does not know these egg donors and the donor and recipient remain anonymous to each other even after the treatment
2. Known or Direct Egg Donors
The recipients know their egg donors; the egg donors, in this case, are usually friends
How does Egg Donor treatment work?
The egg donor takes medication to make her produce many eggs and the recipient receives medication to build her lining and make it receptive to the embryos. The eggs are retrieved, fertilized with partner/husband/donor sperm and the resulting embryo is transferred into the recipient’s womb for implantation.
Please note that if the treatment is successful, the recipient will only be a biological parent while the partner/husband will be both a genetic and biological parent.
