At the present moment, for most of these patients, egg donation remains an extremely successful, cost-effective and popular treatment method for achieving a pregnancy. Of course, the couple has to resolve to the fact that it would not the wife’s own biological (genetic) child. The technique is simple, quite pain-free and has an exceptionally high success rate.
The ICMR guidelines for IVF clinics in India permits egg donation and the use of commercial egg donors for this purpose. Our clinic maintains the highest standards for selection of egg donors, screening for disease, repeat checks for sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis B, C and syphilis and other checks as requested by couples.
Future prospects
The problem of having to accept a foreign DNA in your child might be overcome in the future with the use of enucleated donor oocytes which would allow recipients to use their own genetic material (three-parent IVF) and this is in an active research stage at present.
Improvements in oocyte freezing may soon permit "egg banks" to be set up, reducing the need to synchronize patients while allowing for quarantine for HIV and other diseases.
Also, recent reports of being able to produce eggs in the laboratory from the woman's own skin cells (via stem cell technology) might completely eliminate the need for egg donation and enable every woman to have her own biological child. This technique, however, is still in its infancy and it might be several years before it is permitted for human use.
Who Needs Egg Donation?
Patients with repeated IVF failures owing to poor egg quality / vacuolated eggs/eggs with thick or dark zona, embryos with moderate to severe fragmentation (these are terms which might have been used in the discharge summary of your previous IVF cycles).
Patients above the age of 37 with decreased ovarian / egg reserve.
Patients with decreased ovarian / egg reserve at any age indicated by low serum AMH levels, elevated serum FSH levels or decreased antral follicle counts on ultrasound.
Patients with premature menopause.
Patients with premature ovarian failure.
Patients whose one or both ovaries have been removed with poor ovarian stimulation with FSH injections.