We know that choosing to have IVF with donor eggs is a big step, and that there are lots of things you would wish to consider before starting treatment. In this blog, we have explained each stage of the Egg Donation IVF journey to help demystify the process and provide you with the information you need to take the next step towards family.
Who might need donor eggs in IVF treatment?
There are many reasons why a patient might need to use donor eggs in treatment, but the most common reason is related to a woman’s age. Egg quality deteriorates as a woman gets older, so even if the patient is having regular menstrual cycles, it might not be possible to conceive using her own eggs.
Other reasons for needing donor eggs for treatment could be to avoid a known genetic condition being passed from the patient to her child, or because previous medical treatment, such as chemotherapy, has compromised their fertility. Of course, same-sex male couples or single men would need donor eggs to start their family too.
Success rates using donated eggs are high, largely because we take great care to comprehensively screen potential donors to ensure their fertility is good. For example, all of our donors are younger than 36, have a healthy weight, and have no known genetic conditions. This thorough screening process contributes to our fantastic success rates for treatment using fresh and frozen donor eggs; our clinical pregnancy rate in 2019 was 48% for treatments with frozen eggs and 47% for treatments with fresh eggs.
Find out more about how egg donors are screened and assessed in our Egg Donation FAQS.
-1.png?width=290&name=HFEA%20National%20Average%20(3)-1.png)