Most women experience a natural decline in ovarian function after age 35. Aging naturally causes a decrease in egg quality, which for some women may increase the need to use donor eggs in order to become pregnant.

Donor Egg IVF: The Basics

The reproductive potential of some women is compromised because they do not produce eggs, produce low-grade eggs and/or embryos, or are carriers of a genetic condition.

An option for these women is to undergo donor egg IVF, which is done in conjunction with IVF treatment. Treatment with egg donation involves a woman who serves as an egg donor and a woman who serves as the recipient.

Donor Egg IVF can be used for women who have a healthy uterus, but who either have no eggs (women with early menopause or history of surgical removal) or eggs that have not responded to medications or IVF.

It is a process whereby the egg donor has eggs removed from her ovaries and then fertilized with sperm in our laboratory. The fertilized eggs (now embryos) are then transferred into the uterine cavity of the recipient woman for implantation and the establishment of pregnancy.

Who Uses Donor Eggs?

Women of advanced reproductive age

Gay men

Women who are carriers of a genetic disease

Women with egg-factor infertility

Women with multiple failures to conceive after IVF

Women with a low response to ovulation induction

Women who’ve undergone cancer treatment

Women without ovaries

Women with genetic diseases or chromosomal translocations that they wish to avoid passing on to their offspring.

Egg donors may be a member of the patient’s family, a friend, or an anonymous volunteer screened by our staff. The egg donor must use fertility drugs to stimulate the development of multiple mature eggs, whereas the recipient takes estrogen and progesterone to prepare the uterus for embryos derived through egg donation. The sperm of the husband, partner, or sperm donor is used to fertilize the eggs. All egg donors are screened before they are accepted into the program.

Anonymous egg donors are healthy women between the ages of 19-33 who go through the following testing procedures before being accepted:

Medical history and physical examination

Testing for infectious diseases

Screening for inheritable diseases through the family health questionnaire

Members of our nursing staff can discuss with you the egg donor option

Donor Egg: Fast Facts