Asian Egg Donors

Is there a flaw in the US egg donation system?

The Chicago Tribute pointed out that documentation at egg donor agencies is often suboptimal. Many European egg donor agencies have to report to an egg donation registry that makes sure that all data is stored savely, but in the US this is not happening currently. But there are cases where medical reasons make this necessary, at least morally advisable.

There was the case of the mother of a daughter that died from cancer. The daughter donated her eggs in the past, and the mother now wanted to inform the parents that her daughter donated her eggs for. But the egg donor agency did not store the records and thus there is no way of tracing this family.

Some donor agencies also won’t disclose the information, because of privacy issues.

Three large fertility clinics in the US have committed themselves to a registry comparable to these in Europen states and Australia – but on a voluntary basis. Because privacy is a major selling point of egg donor agencies, and many donors and recieving couples want a 100% guarantee of privacy.

At least 8,000 babies are born each year in the U.S. from donated eggs or embryos, according to reports from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another reason for a registry is that women should not donate their eggs more than 6 times – but since there is no registry of donors, there is no way of ensuring this, other than trusting the donors to be honest about disclosing previous egg donations.

A way of balancing between privacy and responsability would a registry that kept the donors identity private while disclosing as much medical information as necessary.

But there are other factors that come into play to that are more nitty-gritty. For example who will be responsible of alerting families about medical conditions the donors had years after they donated eggs. And how should the egg donor agency keep track of these? This would definitely cost substantial amounts of money, require some legal paperwork and then the risk of legal liability for egg donors or egg donor agencies might arise.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-donor-registry_27mar27,0,1537338.story

Yes. When you become an Asian egg donor (or any kind of egg donor for that matter) the fact that you are donating eggs doesn’t mean that you are loosing eggs that you could otherwise keep.

In fact you are only donating those eggs that you would loose anyway if you don’t become pregnant. Because every month you are loosing eggs, your body is designed that way. Every woman is born with around 2 million eggs (ova). Most of them get lost until adolescence, about 1,8 million eggs. The remaining 200,000 eggs last you for your whole fertile life. Naturally with every menstrual circle you lose some eggs.

Usually in one egg donation treatment you only donate around 8 to 20 eggs – again, these are eggs that your body would otherwise have dispensed of anyway if you would not get pregnant.

So if you are considering to become an Asian egg donor (or any kind of egg donor for that matter) but are concerned about the long term effects of it, and whether or not it affects your capability to conceive a child later in life yourself – go ahead confident and talk to your doctors.

No. An egg donation is a surgical procedure, but according to current medical knowledge no part of becoming an egg donor (whether it’s the surgery or the medications) affects your own fertility in any direct way.

In fact experience has shown that most women who donated eggs actually later in live give good birth – just because the medical screening that they went through prior to becoming an egg donor assured that they are already pretty good candidates.

So Asian egg donors can be confident that they can donate their eggs without risking infertility themselves.