New infertility option: frozen donor eggs

updated 6:55 p.m. ET May 2, 2006

NEW YORK - Avery Lee Kennedy isn't just a cute four-month-old. She may be the embodiment of a new direction in fertility treatments.

Avery was conceived using a frozen donor egg from a bank, a fledgling approach to helping infertile couples that lessens some of the disadvantages of using fresh donated ovum — such as inconvenience, emotional turmoil and availability.

"In five years nobody is going to think anything about this (using frozen donor eggs)," said Wendy Kennedy, Avery's mom. "It will become the norm."

Two donor agencies sell frozen eggs in the United States and at least one other may enter the arena.

For now, the process is rare. Avery may be the first child born in the United States from a frozen donor egg although that's impossible to verify.

Typically donor egg pregnancies are achieved by using fresh eggs harvested from a donor which are fertilized and implanted in another woman.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine says egg freezing is still an experimental technology; few doctors know how to freeze and thaw eggs properly. One doctor estimates only 200 children worldwide have been born from frozen eggs.

Biological insurance?
Egg freezing has been spotlighted recently because it has been promoted to young women as a way to save their eggs for use later in life. But some doctors say it's inappropriate to market an experimental procedure as biological insurance.

There are no reliable statistics of the success of having a baby using frozen eggs, said Dr. Marc A. Fritz, the chairman of the practice committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The odds of having a baby using fresh donor eggs were 51 percent in 2003, the last year for which data are available from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Using fresh donor eggs has its own challenges. It requires that the menstrual cycles of the donor and recipient be synchronized using hormones, so finding a mutually convenient time can be a chore, and a donor may either not produce eggs or change her mind mid-cycle.

Demand for egg donors has increased as women wait longer to start their families. Ova quality drops dramatically after age 35 and is a chief cause of infertility.

Frozen eggs donor would eliminate such problems, experts said.

Luci, who requested her last name not be used, opted to try frozen eggs for her second pregnancy after one donor she selected couldn't be found and another backed out. The 50-year old environmental planner's first child was born using a donated embryo.

"The whole experience is so emotionally loaded," said Luci. "Frozen eggs seemed like a safer choice."

The frozen eggs Luci purchased produced viable embryos, but she couldn't sustain a pregnancy.

Kennedy said she opted to use frozen eggs to avoid having to coordinate with a donor's schedule. She also was troubled by the thought of having leftover embryos.

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