In the last few years, the backdrop to egg donation has changed a lot. Since 2005, sperm and egg donors remain anonymous to the intended parents, but the child can now find out non-identifying information about its donor at 16, and more detailed information, including name and address, when it reaches 18. Although the numbers of egg donors didn’t collapse after this, as feared, fewer new donors registered and there has been a shortage as demand has increased – around 1,300 women every year in the UK are treated with donated eggs – with waiting lists of around a year at some clinics, which has resulted in many women and couples seeking treatment abroad. Earlier this year, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) introduced a £750 compensation fee to women who donate their eggs – a recognition of the invasive and time-consuming process – which has resulted in shorter waiting times at many clinics. Read full article.
Tag: third party reproduction
Who’s Mom? Legally, biologically, it’s no easy answer
Artificial reproductive technologies have made familiar terms outdated and inadequate. Supreme Court could clarify parents’ rights later this year with rulings in two gay marriage cases.
In a classic 1960 children’s book, a baby bird toddles up to one critter after another asking, “Are you my mother?”
For some babies today, there’s no simple answer — biologically or legally.
Advances in artificial reproductive technologies, mean a baby could have three “mothers” — the genetic mother, the birth mother and the intended parent, who may be a woman or a man.
Mother here may not be mother there. Mother nowmay not be mother later. Statutes on surrogacy, adoption, divorce and inheritance vary state by state, court by court, decision by decision. For non-traditional couples, the patchwork of laws makes it even more complex. New York allows gay marriage but forbids surrogacy, while Utah permits surrogacy but bans gay marriage. Read full article.
Quigley: Who’s Your Mommy? New problems with surrogacy contracts
If a married woman has a baby, her husband is automatically named father, even if she uses a sperm donor or her spouse has been in jail or Afghanistan for a year and she’s been fooling around with every guy in town. A suspicious husband can demand blood or DNA tests to disprove paternity, but if he doesn’t challenge, he is deemed the father, no matter what.
Disputed motherhood was never an issue. Until recently. It used to be simple: the woman who delivered a baby was its mother. Pretty obvious, right?
Then along came surrogacy contracts, when some women agreed to bear children for other women.
Now stick with me here. This can get complicated. A surrogate may agree to become pregnant with her own egg and sperm from the intended father. Or she may use an egg from the intended mother who can ovulate but not carry a child to term. Or she can accept an egg from a third party. Sperm can be from either the intended father or a donor. Read full article.
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.
FDA: Fertility Doctor Didn’t Test Donors For STDs
Federal regulators have sent a warning letter to a Chicago fertility doctor, citing his clinic’s failure to meet standards for screening egg donors for sexually transmitted diseases.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s letter to Dr. Martin Balin was posted on the agency’s website Tuesday night. FDA spokeswoman Lisa Misevicz said nobody got sick, but the FDA’s goal is to “prevent anyone from becoming sick in the future.”
The letter followed an FDA inspection of Balin’s north Chicago office from June 20 through Aug. 17 during which an investigator found “significant deviations” from required screenings for egg donors.
The FDA routinely inspects clinics that deal with human tissue, including donated eggs, which can be used to help infertile couples conceive. Women generally are paid to provide eggs, which are retrieved and fertilized. The resulting embryos are implanted in the recipient’s uterus. Read full article.
Not a Biological Parent? How to Tell Your Child
As an infertility counsellor, I see a lot of clients who are using third-party family building strategies. This includes using sperm or egg donation and/or a gestational carrier.
For some, the decision to use donor egg or sperm is a no-brainer: they want children, they cannot use their own gametes, so they use someone else’s. For these individuals the desire to parent is so strong, that they are unconcerned with the lack of biological tie that they themselves, or their partner, will have with the child. Read full article.
Frozen Egg Donor Banks Sprout in Wake of New Technology
You’ve heard about sperm banks. Now, at long last, make room for their genetic equivalents: egg donor banks.
After years of failed attempts to effectively freeze donor eggs, a revolutionary technology has finally fine-tuned the process, giving birth to a cottage industry of banks with a growing national catalog of healthy donor eggs. Read full article.
Is China Running Out of Sperm?
Infertility is a growing problem in China. In southern Guangdong province, 14 percent of the population, which numbered 104 million in 2010, cannot conceive — and the fact that the province has only one sperm bank doesn’t help. Couples generally have to wait at least a year to have their names called. The sperm shortage has even prompted a desperate plea from a government official, according to one Chinese-language news site, asking college students to donate. ”Donating your sperm is healthy,” said Luo Wenzhi, the head of Guangdong’s family planning commission, in an interview. “It won’t hurt you nor kill you.” Read full article.
41 Years Ago, a Sperm Donation. Today, Twins.
With proper storage, even 40-year-old sperm can get the job done.
A North Oaks-based company called ReproTech says it played a role in the August birth of twin girls to a woman inseminated with sperm that was frozen back in 1971.
Few details about the sperm donor and birth family were available for privacy reasons, but the local company says the previous record for a successful live birth using “cryopreserved” sperm was 28 years.
Russell Bierbaum, chief executive at ReproTech, said he hopes the story will help convince more young men facing a cancer diagnosis to consider banking their sperm before undergoing chemotherapy treatments that could impair their fertility. Read full article.
Why We Just Can’t Let Go of Our Last Embryo
In the same week I read about a soaring demand for donated embryos, we received our quarterly storage invoice. There are more than 100,000 frozen embryos – including ours, our last one – in storage in Australia and yet demand is now ”outstripping supply by about 20 to one, meaning hundreds of people are on waiting lists at IVF clinics hoping for an embryo”, as Fairfax reported earlier this month.
It’s a curious situation but, as researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney discovered, many Australian couples (more than 40 per cent) are simply refusing to donate their spare embryos.
Many who go through IVF and have stored embryos would appreciate what other infertile couples are going through (in fact, ”feeling compassion for others struggling with infertility” remains high on the list of motives of those who do choose to donate). Bearing that in mind, things just don’t seem to add up.
These latest reports hit a particularly raw nerve for us. While we may have completed our family, as time marches on, notions of donating the embryo – or blastocyst – for research (worthy) or having it destroyed (almost unthinkable) seem less and less viable. Read full article.