Who considers becoming a parent through egg donation?

One of the most exciting and significant advances in reproductive medicine has been the introduction of egg donation. Egg donation is a type of in vitro fertilization that allows a woman to bear children, even if she is experiencing infertility due to a low number or low quality of eggs. Egg donation was originally developed for women who had experienced menopause (complete depletion of eggs) or for women who were born without functioning ovaries. Today, egg donation is most commonly used by women who are experiencing age-related infertility. In the best interest of the health and safety of the mother and baby, it is strongly recommended that the recipient be no older than 50 years of age at the time of embryo transfer. There should also be no medical or other contraindications to pregnancy.

To better understand why egg donation is a successful treatment for age-related infertility, it is helpful to review the natural process of reproductive aging. As you may know, a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have. Each month, nearly 1000 eggs will die off for every one which will ovulate; ultimately the egg supply reaches zero and menopause occurs. As women get older, they will often continue to ovulate regularly, but the quality of the egg that is released will, on average, not be as good as the quality of the egg that is released by a younger woman. An egg which is released by an older woman will be more likely to contain the wrong number of chromosomes. If such an egg is fertilized, it will often become an embryo which does not develop or which miscarries. This is why women may experience significantly reduced fertility even 10-15 years before their menopause, despite regular ovulation. Since this is not a well-known fact, many couples have planned their lives and careers based on the mistaken belief that their fertility will remain high well into their forties.

Although age-related infertility or menopause are the most common reasons for considering egg donation, the treatment may be considered in other circumstances. For example, some women carry a genetic disease which they want to avoid passing on to their offspring. Other people consider using egg donation because of lack of success with other forms of infertility treatment. The success rates for egg donation is much higher than those of traditional IVF. Over the past three years at FPNC, more than 65% of our egg donor recipients were able welcome a healthy baby into the world after one egg donation cycle.

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