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Egg Share and Donor Programmes

Egg sharing
Many couples with fertility problems find themselves ineligible for treatment on the NHS but cannot afford to pay for treatment privately. ‘Egg sharing’ provides IVF treatment for infertile couples who are prepared to share their eggs with a recipient who carries most of the cost burden.

At GCRM this significantly reduces the cost of IVF for such egg-sharing donors. Please go to price list for further details. The shared eggs are donated to women who are unable to produce their own eggs. This might be because they have gone through the menopause early - as young as 20. Some of our patients have had chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer which has left them infertile. Other women have genetic conditions which they do not want to pass on to their children and seek donor eggs to ensure that this doesn't happen. Unless a donor comes forward we are unable to help them.

Egg sharers go through a standard IVF treatment procedure. Although there is an extra blood test prior to treatment to screen for disorders such as Cystic Fibrosis. When the egg sharer (donor) reaches the stage of egg collection, the eggs are shared between the egg sharer and the recipient. The process is carried out anonymously with the egg sharer and recipient never meeting. To participate in our Egg Share programme you must be under 36 years of age, and have an anti-mullerian hormone concentration of 10 pmol/L or greater, to indicate a high response to treatment. You should have no serious genetic (medical) problems or a history of ovarian disease or surgery.

Egg Donation
Egg Donation is an option for the following groups of women:

1. Women with ovaries having suffered from:
   • primary ovarian failure
   • premature menopause (before the age of 40)
   • ovarian damage following surgery, radiation or chemotherapy

2. Women with active ovaries including:
   • those with an inheritable genetic disorder
   • those who repeatedly fail to respond to ovarian stimulation in an IVF programme
   • those whose eggs repeatedly fail to fertilise in an IVF programme, or whose embryos repeatedly fail to implant
   • those with a history of recurrent miscarriage

Egg donation involves the synchronising the recipient's menstrual cycle with the ovarian activity of the donor. To achieve this, the recipient is placed on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) which allows us to manipulate her cycle according to the donor’s ovarian activity. The donated eggs are then fertilised with sperm from the recipient's partner. Following fertilisation, the embryos are transferred either into the uterus of the recipient. If cycles cannot be synchronised, the donated eggs can be fertilised with the sperm from the recipient's partner and any resulting embryos frozen for use in a future cycle.

Egg recipients are encouraged to help recruit donors either for themselves or others to increase the availability of donor eggs, as this appears to be the most successful source. These donors may be known to the recipient or remain anonymous.

It is strongly recommended that both couples and donors in egg donation schemes undergo extensive counselling prior to commencing, as many issues need to be considered.

Donors should be under the age of 36, and preferably have completed their own family. They should have a normal AMH (hormone concentration) of 5 pmol/L or greater, to indicate a normal response to treatment.

We try to ensure that both donors and recipients share similar physical characteristics such as skin colour, eye and hair colour. All our donors are screened for the communicable diseases HIV, Hepatitis B and C, cystic fibrosis and syphilis.

Donor sperm
For some men, no sperm can be recovered, or there may be a genetic reason for not passing on particular attributes to the next generation. In these circumstances couples decide to use donor sperm which is matched as closely as possible to the male partner’s physical characteristics. This is a strictly regulated process, about which much consideration must be given.

There is currently a severe shortage of donor sperm and GCRM is always interested in speaking to anyone who would consider becoming a sperm donor. See the factsheets below for further details.

All Donations
Since April 2005, any child born from donated eggs or sperm may, at age 18, request and be given identifying information about their donor.

Further Information
Some factsheets are available as follows :-

• Sperm Donation
• HFEA guide: ‘Donating sperm, eggs or embryos’
• HFEA guide: ‘Donating - What else does it involve’
• Egg Share Programme
• Egg Donation
• Egg Recipient

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