Egg Donation

Egg Donation India

Egg donation treatment is the process by which a woman provides one or several (usually 10-15) eggs for the purpose of assisted reproductive techniques to another woman. For ART, egg donation typically involves the process of Invitro fertilization as the eggs are fertilized in the laboratory, more rarely; unfertilized eggs are frozen and stored for later use by the intended parents.

Q. What is the egg donation?

In egg donation, eggs are borrowed from a young woman (whose age is less than 32 years) with her consent. These donor eggs are then fertilized with the sperms of recipient's husband and the resulting embryo is transferred into the recipient's uterus.

Q. What are the indications necessitating egg donation?

1. With more and more women being career oriented and delaying their marriage, the time by which they plan to start a family they are nearing the third decade of life (30 years and above). However, most of these women will conceive naturally but about 10-15% would need to resort to medical help to achieve a conception. Even after taking treatment, they may not become pregnant necessitating use of artificial reproductive techniques like IVF or ICSI. But even with these techniques their age may act as a hindrance because the ovaries may have lesser number of eggs and their quality may be compromised. At this stage, egg donation may play an important role to help these women achieve a conception.
2. For postmenopausal and elderly women as well as younger patients who have had a premature ovarian failure.
3. Patients with repeated failure of ART cycles including IVF and ICSI using their own eggs.
4. Young patients who have undergone radiation/chemotherapy for cancer.
5. It is also used for patients carrying major chromosomal defects which are likely to be passed on to their children.
6. In women with diseases such as tuberculosis or endometriosis, the quality of eggs may be compromised and egg donation may result in a better outcome.
7. The adoption laws of our country give preference to younger couples. The older couples may thus benefit from this treatment.

Q3. How successful is egg freezing?

Since the technique is relatively new, it is difficult to predict the outcome but worldwide about 100 babies have been born through this process.

Q. Who can be a donor?

The biggest problem faced by the patients and the doctors is the availability of egg donors.
1. Ideally the best situation would be having relative donor i.e. either a sister or a near relative from the patients side (not the husband's blood relation) who would donate eggs to her. But this might not always be possible.
2. The other most acceptable option would be a voluntary unrelated donor who would donate eggs without expecting any monitory gains.
3. The third category is of paid donors where egg donors get paid for their services. The ICMR has legalised paid egg donation and surrogacy.
4. A new concept has now evolved out of this need for eggs, where by the women requiring same treatment of IVF or ICSI but financially not able to go through with the procedure share their eggs with the recipients who in return pay a part of the medical treatment of the young woman after taking an informed consent. Thus both donor and recipient are benefitted without any additional risk to the donors.

Q. How are the donors screened?

Egg donors are usually young women less than 35 years of age with good ovarian reserve preferably having their own children. A detailed family and personal history is taken to rule out genetic disorders or any other familial illness. Besides these, Blood tests are also done to rule out transmissible diseases like Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and AIDS etc.

Q. How is the procedure done?

This procedure involves synchronization of the donor and the recipient cycles so that a fresh embryo transfer can be done. This is achieved with medication. Thereafter, the donor is stimulated with hormonal injections to produce multiple eggs. These eggs are then retrieved under short general anesthesia and fertilized with recipient's husband sperms in the laboratory either through IVF or ICSI technique. The resulting embryos are then transferred to the recipient's uterus either on D3 or D5 of the retrieval.

Q. What is the age limit of the recipients?

Any women requiring egg donation due to age related or genetic cause can be a recipient. At Dr. Ruchika Test Tube Baby Centre we have limited the age to 55 years. Such patients require a detailed medical and Psychological analysis so as to gauge their ability to withstand childbirth.

Q. What is the success rate of the procedure?

Usually, egg donor cycles have a success rate of more than 60%. When a fresh cycle is followed by a frozen cycle the success rate goes up to approximately 80%.

  • Our approach –

    Dr. Ruchika Test Tube Baby Centre is renowned for its egg donation programme. Our patients hail from all over the country as well as overseas. We generally indulge in family related donors or egg sharing. Our unit has also started doing some degree of paid egg donation based on the ICMR draft.

EMBRYO DONATION

Embryo donation is the donation of embryo for placement into the recipient women's uterus to facilitate pregnancy and childbirth

Q. What is embryo donation?

Embryo donation is similar to egg donation except that in place of using eggs and fertilizing it with recipient's husband's sperms, both eggs and sperms are borrowed from donors.

Q. Who can opt for embryo donation?

All the patients who are eligible for egg donation are all eligible for embryo donation as well. This procedure yields the highest pregnancy rates and is the most cost effective treatment.

Q. What is the source of embryos for embryo donation?

1. Usually there are many young patients requiring IVF/ICSI procedure but cannot afford it due to financial constraints. These patients from multiple eggs and as a result many embryos. After taking an informed consent, some of these embryos are donated to the recipients who in turn provide the finances for drugs used in these patients
2. Alternatively many young patients when stimulated produce multiple eggs and therefore multiple embryos. The extra embryos which are left after embryo transfer are cryopreserved. In case the couple becomes pregnant and do not wish for any more pregnancy these embryos are then donated to infertile couples.

Q. How is Embryo donation performed?

The procedure is similar to egg donation. The recipient is down regulated and the hormonal tablets are started from day 2 of her periods. A transvaginal scanning is done on Day 10 to know the thickness of the endometrial lining. If the thickness is more than 9mm it can support a pregnancy. Once this is achieved, good quality embryos need to be placed into the womb for a pregnancy to occur.

In case of menopausal woman who have stopped menstruating cyclical hormones are given to start their periods after which the procedure is started.

Q. How is the procedure different from adoption?

For infertile couples, embryo donation provides an opportunity to become pregnant experience the feeling of carrying and nurturing the child and then finally giving birth to their child thereby overcoming their fear regarding social acceptance of their child. Also the adoption laws in our country give preference to young couples therefore this procedure is a boon for elderly couples and couples who want to maintain secrecy regarding use of donor gametes.

Q. How is the procedure different from surrogacy?

In surrogacy, the embryos are placed inside the womb of another woman who carries the baby till term for the infertile couple but in embryos donation the infertile couple carries the embryos of other donors finally delivers the child they will parent.

Q. What is the success rate following embryo donation?

The pregnancy rates are as high as 50-60% because the embryos are of good quality and the endometrial receptivity can be achieved with medications.

Q. What about the privacy and confidentiality of the procedure?

At our clinic embryo donation is totally anonymous unless done by a relative. There is no contact between the donating and the recipient couple.

Q. Will the child be normal and what will he look like?

As the embryos are usually derived from a couple of Indian origin children borne are generally healthy with black hair, black eyes and whitish skin. All other risk factors are similar to that of normal pregnancy.