Egg Donation & Surrogacy Consulting : Conceptual Options : Theresa Erickson : Embryo Donation, In-Vitro Fertilization

The Reproductive Bio Medicine journal recently published a huge study for the area of Assisted Reproductive Technologies. This study was conducted by a group of Spanish researchers and is considered to be the largest and most comprehensive study regarding the effect of male aging and its effect on assisted reproductive technologies.

Following their extensive research, they found that male aging does not have any negative impact on the resulting embryo quality or the implantation rate for these resulting embryos. This is a very interesting study considering that it was believed that like female aging, male aging also had an effect on embryos and their implantation rate when using Assisted Reproductive Technologies.

However, it would be interesting to look at this study more closely and to see exactly what their findings were to compare to the same results from a study based upon female again and its effect on ART. What are your thoughts?

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At the ASRM’s annual meeting in San Francisco this year most of the speakers and participants spoke about the push towards only implanting one embryo at a time within the US, which is the standard throughout Europe.

However, some practitioners warned that this should only be pushed, as ASRM recommends, for patients under the age of 35 who have not had a failed previous cycle of IVF. If this was adopted in the US it is believed that it would save a total of $1 billion in healthcare costs from the adverse affects of multiple pregnancies.

However, it could also cost patients an extra $100 million to achieve the same pregnancy rates as with the multiple embryo transfer. Which is better? What are your thoughts?

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As the LA Times recently reported deciding what to do with excess embryos is a daunting task for many individuals and couples who have gone through fertility treatments and achieved a healthy pregnancy.

Additionally, if you decide to donate your cryopreserved embryos to research it is often a lot easier said than done, especially in states that do not allow embryos to be used in medical research. However, even if you are donating your embryos in a state that allows embryos to be used for research it is still a daunting task with a lot of paperwork that needs to be completed.

Because of all of the paperwork many clinics report that couples and/or individuals are more likely to discard their excess embryos because that is the “easier” option. Yet, for some donating or discarding is not even an option because they feel that they would be donating or discarding a “child,” which, if that is your belief, only makes this decision all the more difficult.

However, if these embryos were to be donated to science there are numerous maladies that are being researched to find a cure for and these embryos could help find those cures.

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Intended Parents often have questions about what happen if the first "fresh" attempt doesn't work.  Most of the time, the back-up plan is to use frozen embryos for subsequent cycles.  This is true whether the embryos are being placed in the Intended Mother or in a Surrogate.

The European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology has recently completed a study that indicates that children born from frozen embryos do better and have a higher birth weight than children born from a fresh transfer.

The study evaluated babies born during the years 1995 - 2006.  The study included 1,267 children born from Frozen Embryos and 17,857 babies born after normal IVF with fresh embryos.  The results of the study showed that children who came from frozen embryos had higher birth weights, longer pregnancies, and less pre-term births.  There was no difference int he rate of birth defects whether the children came from frozen embryos or fresh embryos. 

It is unclear why the frozen embryo children did better than their fresh embryo counterparts.  One suggestion is that "weaker embryos" may have been weeded out by the freeze thaw process, leaving only the healthiest embryos to produce a pregnancy. 

So if your initial attempt doesn't work, don't get discouraged.  There is proof that the frozen embryos have just as good of a chance of being the child you have always wanted.

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