CDC Report: Donated egg pregnancies on rise in US

The number of US women having children via in vitro fertilization of donated eggs has increased in previous decade, says a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

|
Richard Drew/AP
Embryologist Rick Slifkin demonstrates fertilization techniques on a nonviable embryo at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, in New York, Oct. 3.

US women are increasingly using donated eggs to get pregnant, with often good results, although the ideal outcome – a single baby born on time at a healthy weight – is still uncommon, a study found.

That ideal result occurred in about 1 out of 4 donor egg pregnancies in 2010, up from 19 percent a decade earlier, the study found.

Almost 56 percent resulted in a live birth in 2010, and though most of these were generally healthy babies, 37 percent were twins and many were born prematurely, at low birth weights. Less than 1 percent were triplets. Low birth weights are less than about 5½ pounds and babies born that small are at risk for complications.

For women who use in vitro fertilization and their own eggs, the live-birth rate varies by age and is highest – about 40 percent – among women younger than 35.

Women who use IVF with donor eggs are usually older and don't have viable eggs of their own. Because the donor eggs are from young, healthy women, they have a good chance of success, generally regardless of the recipient's age.

The average age of women using donor eggs was 41 in 2010 and donors were aged 28 on average; those didn't change over 10 years.

The study, by researchers at Emory University and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was published online Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's annual meeting in Boston.

IVF involves mixing eggs and sperm in a lab dish and transferring the resulting embryo to the woman's womb a few days later. It's most often used with the woman's own eggs, in cases of infertility.

The study found attempts using donor eggs increased over the decade from 10,801 to 18,306. Transferring just one embryo, to avoid multiple births, also increased, from less than 1 percent to 15 percent in 2010.

Lead author Dr. Jennifer Kawwass of Emory University said researchers still need to find better ways to identify which embryos have the best chance of resulting in healthy babies.

Dr. William Schlaff, Ob-Gyn chief at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said the rise in use of donor eggs "is probably partly a social story. Women not having success in becoming pregnant in their late 30s and 40s are more comfortable using donor eggs" and techniques have improved to raise success rates, Schlaff said. He was not involved in the research.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to CDC Report: Donated egg pregnancies on rise in US
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/1017/CDC-Report-Donated-egg-pregnancies-on-rise-in-US
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe