New way to select a donor egg

More couples are researching the use of donor eggs than ever before in order to conceive a child. Usually donor eggs come from young, fit women who donate their eggs for that expressed purpose or from eggs donated by women who no longer plan to use their own preserved eggs. Once you have found a source for the eggs, you must choose the donor. Usually, but not always, it is important to the families that their baby look like them, with similar eye and hair color, height, and other physical attributes. Sometimes parents are interested in intelligence or other unquantifiable characteristics. Since egg donation is overwhelmingly anonymous, getting answers to those questions is challenging.

Southeastern Fertility Center in South Carolina has come up with a novel way to help potential parents get some additional information while protecting the anonymity of their donors: baby photos of the donor. They offer an online website that shows baby photos alongside other factual physical data. This gives a hint as to what a baby may look like.

“Our collection of egg donor baby photos allows potential parents to get some idea of what their child might look like,” said Dr. John Schnorr, Reproductive Endocrinologist with Southeastern. “For most women, it’s very important to share traits such as eye and hair color with their child even if that child is not genetically their own.”

The site is available online by using protected passwords and is only available to clients of the center.

Source: Southeastern Fertility Center, WMBF News