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More women turn to frozen eggs for help with infertility

Ellen Carpenter delayed marriage until she found Mr. Right, but by that time she was 38 years old, making it much more difficult to have children.

After getting pregnant with the help of hormone injections, the Frederick County resident lost the baby — a girl with severe body malformations — in the first trimester. She explored other options and chose to use frozen eggs from a donor. Today, Carpenter is the mother of a rambunctious 18-month-old named Zachary.

A growing number of women are turning to frozen eggs to solve their fertility problems as the controversial procedure that long raised safety concerns slowly gains acceptance. Fertility clinics around the country are working to make frozen donor eggs more available to women, and advances in medical technology such as flash freezing have helped improve the procedure’s success rate.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine added its stamp of approval in October to the use of frozen eggs on a limited basis by declaring that the procedure is no longer considered experimental. The group found that successful pregnancy rates were the same using frozen eggs as fresh eggs.

But frozen egg use still raises concerns and may not become mainstream any time soon. Read full article.

Fertility Clock Headlines, Fertility Headlines

Govt Backs Egg and Sperm Donor ID (AUS)

IT is up to the states and territories to legislate so that Australians conceived through sperm or egg donations can identify their donors, the federal government says.

The government has backed a Senate committee’s call for donor information to be made available but says there is no constitutional power for the Commonwealth to legislate comprehensively in the area.

Last year in February a Senate committee handed down 32 recommendations, chief among them a proposal to introduce a national registry to contain donor information.

The recommendation, if implemented, would allow donor-conceived people to find out who their donor is once they turn 18 years old.

It also recommended donors not be able to identify their offspring unless the children gave their consent and siblings to have to give their approval to be identified to their half-brothers or sisters. Read full article.