If you have been trying to conceive for a year or longer, you may now be grappling with infertility issues, and embryo adoption might prove to be an option you might consider at some point in the future.
What is Embryo Adoption?
Embryo adoption, very simply put, is when both the sperm and egg are donated, and then the resultant embryo is transferred to the “adoptive” mother to continue the pregnancy.
Last month, February 2010, a 51 year old American teacher named Patricia Bohanon received an embryo via IVF from anonymous sperm and egg donors in India.
Ms. Bohanon is due to deliver this baby from embryo adoption in December of this year.
Dr Anjali Malpani, an infertility specialist who treated Bohanon, performs about three to four embryo adoptions each month as opposed to the random annual procedure, which was the case until a few years back.
Says Dr Malpani, “With availability of better infertility treatment techniques, embryo adoption/donation is becoming popular of late across the world.”
In the US alone, where embryo adoption is about a decade old, over 1,000 babies have been born using this method.
“Adopting an embryo allows a woman who is infertile to experience motherhood, complete with labour pains, as against rearing an adopted child,” says infertility expert Dr Indira Hinduja.
Since the birth of the first test-tube baby in England 32 years ago, embryos have been grown in petri-dish. As technology has steadily improved, more and more eggs were harvested from infertile women and more embryos grown per couple.
It is this overabundance, if you will, of embryos that is at least partially responsible for embryo adoption.
“We are living in a world driven by technology. On the one hand, technology has given us contraception, that has meant fewer babies in general and fewer still for adoption. On the other hand, technology in infertility treatment has allowed us to freeze embryos,” says Dr. Malpani.
In other words, embryos can be adopted years after they were made!
Apart from technology, Dr Indira Hinduja, who is credited with India’s first test-tube baby born in KEM Hospital 20 years ago, cites an emotional reason contributing to this newfound popularity of embryo donation:
“If you adopt an embryo, the whole world sees that you are pregnant. You don’t have to publicize that it was someone’s egg and sperm. The law says that you are the biological mother as you have delivered the child. Moreover, you get to feel the baby kick; you go through labour as well as breast-feeding.”
Even older women who have gone through menopause can have a baby through embryo adoption.
For couples or single women who want a baby and are unable to conceive, embryo adoption may be the answer!
Egg Donation: Is it Ethical?
Infertility: Use of Assisted Reproductive Techniques on the Rise!
Coping with Infertility: You and Your Partner
Infertility: There is Hope Through Assisted Reproductive Technology
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