The human female is born with about a million eggs and this number does not increase. With age, there is a dip in female fertility.

Egg donation or oocyte donation makes it possible for those women to get pregnant who cannot do so with their own eggs. Older women most often opt for this method of fertility treatment. Attempts to conceive with donor egg IVF have a high rate of success.

What Exactly is Donor Egg IVF?
Donor egg IVF is a fertility treatment or Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in which the egg from a donor is subjected to IVF. That is, the egg from the donor is mixed with the sperm from the biological father in the laboratory. If embryos are produced, they are grown in a lab dish and then transferred to the recipient’s uterus. If this results in a pregnancy, the baby thus born will have genetic linkage to the donor of the egg.

Who Qualifies to Receive an Egg?
The criteria for women to qualify to receive eggs are:

• Early menopause
• Abnormal ovarian reserve
• Previous failures to conceive with IVF
• Very low egg quality
• Genetic disease
• Ovaries unresponsive to stimulation
• Over the age of 39

The Egg Donation Process
Couples sometimes choose a known donor. Else, it is an anonymous donor. The donor is screened for any diseases like HIV, chlamydia, hepatitis, toxicology testing and other diseases and also certain genetic predispositions. The donor is usually young, not more than 25 years of age, so that the quality of the eggs is high.

The recipient’s menstrual cycle is synchronized with the donor’s by giving the recipient some hormonal drugs. The male partner of the recipient provides a semen sample on the day eggs are retrieved from the donor. The semen and eggs are then fertilized through the in vitro fertilization process.

Embryo transfer is usually done three days after the eggs were retrieved. Ten days after the embryo transfer, the recipient goes through a blood test to check for pregnancy. (The transfer process involves a speculum which is inserted into the vagina to expose the cervix. The embryo/s is/are suspended in fluid and gently placed through a catheter into the womb. This process is done by monitoring it through ultrasound and is usually painless.)

Advantages of Donor Egg IVF
The advantages of donor egg IVF are simply its high chances of success. In fact, donor egg IVF has  a much higher success rate when compared to IVF with non-donor. It is the age of the egg that seems to matter more than the womb in which it is planted. By receiving the egg, the recipient replicates in her body the donor’s fertility condition.

Risks of Donor Egg IVF
The recipient stands the risk of contracting a transmittable disease. Though the donor is screened for HIV, such testing may not show anything if the donor has contracted HIV very recently.

Also, with donor egg IVF, there is the chance of multiple births if too many embryos are transferred. Twin births often happen in this method.

Donor Egg IVF in India
India has the advanced infrastructure and qualified fertility specialists required for donor egg IVF treatment. It’s the low cost of donor egg IVF in India that has made it a favorite with couples looking to have babies. India’s medical tourism industry is growing by leaps and bounds because of the quality medical care it offers at unbelievable prices.

Please do keep in mind that donor eggs available in India are only of Indian ethnicity. But people from overseas visiting India for surrogacy or egg donor IVF can always bring an egg donor with them from their country of origin.

Donor egg IVF in India has brought sunshine into the homes of many a childless couple. So go ahead and get some sunshine for yourself!

Related links:

• Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology
• India Surrogacy

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Medical Tourism - Global Medical Care, reproductive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.