How many eggs on average are donated on an Egg Donation treatment at Instituto Bernabeu?
In Spain, we performed 40% of all egg donation cycles in Europe. The experience accumulated at Instituto Bernabeu in the last decades, allows us to offer to our patients a high quality and personalized treatment.
When a patient decides to go for an Egg Donation treatment, a chain work is set in the organization, in which we guarantee a commitment of trust, reliability and professional quality. Matching the donor to each recipient patient allows a better quality and larger number of oocytes to be donated. We guarantee a minimum of 8 donated oocytes and a statistical average of 11.
Why an “x” number of eggs are donated? Why not only one?
We need to keep in mind that in the developing process of a fertility treatment, there are a number of facts subject to human biology itself.
To begin with, not all the eggs collected will be suitable to be fertilized. Only those ones that have achieved an adequate maturity will have that option. Not all the mature eggs will get fertilize and some others will have an abnormal fertilization so there will be discarded for a possible transfer.
The eggs fertilized with normalcy that is the generated embryos from the fertilization, will have a different pattern. Each embryo has its own destination. Some will get blocked during the observation period before the transfer, some others will survive until the transfer day but with bad or low quality, and only a few will have an adequate morphology and development to be selected for the embryo transfer. This is a completely normal development that happen in all assisted reproduction cycles both with own eggs and donated eggs.
Sometimes, patients understand the “loss” of embryos as a poor outcome. How these can happen if we had so many embryos and we ended up with just a few? The main reason is natural biological selection within the absolute normality.
At Instituto Bernabeu the egg donor is selected individually in each case, ensuring the maximum similarity with the recipient patient, and is treated in a safe and controlled manner to guarantee obtaining an adequate number of eggs, always under close medical supervision.
The average age of an egg donor in our clinic is 25 years old. After the ovarian stimulation we retrieve all the eggs possible. Currently our average number of donated eggs is 10,5 per cycle. The rate of mature eggs is 90%, this demonstrate the proper selection of egg donors and the correct enforcement of the ovarian stimulation patterns.
Results
The fertilization rate, that is the number of embryos generated by the amount of eggs fertilized, is 75%. From this point onwards and as I explained above, each embryo will have a different development. But not only is the number of eggs retrieved important, the quality is essential. This is determined primarily by the age of the woman, a comprehensive selection of the egg donor, the quality in the implementation of stimulation protocols and the fact that many egg donors have previous proven fertility. This allows performing the embryo transfer, in a high percentage of cases, the 5th day of embryonic life (for the most advanced embryonic development called blastocyst).
The entire set of facts can offer our patients the possibility of transferring a high number of quality embryos, in fact 91% of egg donation cycles quality embryos can be frozen (vitrified) with a cumulative pregnancy rate of 78,2% per cycle. (Date 2019)
This is especially important in the group recipient patients to who, in many cases, by age or medical history or by choice is decided to transfer a single embryo to avoid the risk of twin pregnancy.
The quantity and quality of eggs donated per cycle at our center ensures the highest probability of normal to term pregnancy.
The quantity and quality of eggs donated per cycle at our center ensures the highest probability of normal to term pregnancy.
Dr. Lydia Luque, Gynecologist at Instituto Bernabeu.
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