Oocyte donation
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Many patients cannot have children for reasons that involve egg problems. For example:
1. Patients with poor quality oocytes
2. Patients with chromosomal disorders (Turner syndrome, etc.).
3. Patients who have gone through menopause, either early or not. |
W
 When a girl is born, she has in her ovaries all the eggs she will have for the rest of her life (it is estimated between 400,000 to a million). These eggs are wasted and they are lost through life. They are the ones used in ovulation during the reproductive life of the woman. When menopause is reached, the ovaries do not contain any more eggs.
When this happens (when the ovaries have exhausted their reserve of eggs), there is not a way to make them to produce eggs again. On the other hand, when the eggs are of poor quality (either for endometriosis or for any other disease), there is no treatment to improve their quality. |
In all these cases, the only way to achieve a pregnancy is by using eggs from a donor. With this treatment, the donated eggs are fertilized with the partner’s sperm (or from a donor, depending on the case). Once the embryos are produced, they are transferred to the recipient woman (whose uterus has previously received a treatment to prepare the endometrium to make it receptive to the embryos).
This process involves the donor on one hand and, on the other hand, the woman who finally receives the eggs (whom we call recipient).
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How is the egg donation done? |
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