|
Looking for a
Surrogate Mother or an egg donor?
This book
is a moving real-life account of one woman's struggle
with infertility and her journey through surrogacy to
have the family she desperately wanted.
Click here
for more details
Latest Surrogacy News
Egg-share plan 'safe for donors
Monday, 3 November, 2003
Women who give up some
of their eggs in return for fertility treatment are just as likely to get
pregnant as other patients, say researchers
"Egg-sharing" schemes
operate at many IVF clinics, producing a source of eggs for women who have
none of their own.
The study, published in the
journal Human Reproduction, found that despite giving
some of their eggs away, women were not at
extra risk of side-effects.
The practice of egg-sharing
or giving remains controversial - with accusations that clinics are
exploiting couples who cannot afford expensive private IVF treatment.
But those who offer the
schemes say that without egg-sharing, these women would have no chance of
having an IVF baby.
Many older infertile women
have no eggs of their own, and there is an ongoing shortage of donor eggs,
with some clinics actually advertising egg-sharing schemes in local press.
Normal practice is for
women to be given fertility drugs to boost the number of eggs produced in a
single cycle.
'First pick'
When these are "harvested"
by doctors, these are divided between the egg-sharer and recipient. The
donor has "first pick" of at least four eggs before the rest are given to
other women.
Of the 95 fertility clinics
in the UK, 45 are known to operate some form of egg-sharing scheme.
The latest study, at the
private Lister Hospital in London, which runs an active egg-sharing scheme,
found no differences in the pregnancy rate between ordinary paying patients
and egg-sharers.
In the case of the Lister,
a woman who donates eggs pays £500 per cycle of IVF, as opposed to more than
£3,000 per cycle for the non-sharing customer.
There was no evidence that
women were given higher doses of fertility drugs in order to produce a
larger number of eggs.
The egg sharers achieved a
pregnancy rate of 42% per cycle - and a live birth rate of 33%, compared
with 40% and 30.9% for the non egg-sharers.
Mr Hossam Abdalla, the
director of the assisted reproduction clinic at the Lister, said: "Up to
now, there has been no research in the UK carried out with large numbers of
patients to ensure that the egg-sharing programme is not detrimental to egg
sharers or to the outcome of recipients' treatment compared with standard
IVF".
He said: "Our view is that
for successful egg sharing the sharer should always be given priority and
have the first call on her eggs without any undue pressure."
The clinic is currently
conducting research into the psychological effects of egg sharing on women
who take part.
back to top |
