What is the chance of achieving a live birth using donor eggs?
Pregnancy and live birth rates following egg donation are significantly higher compared to that achieved after IVF using the woman' own eggs. Live birth rate in the region of 25-50% per treatment cycle should be expected. There are many factors that affect success rates.
| Fresh embryos | Frozen embryos | |
| UK | 31.5% | 23.0% |
| USA | 52.3% | 30.9% |
Data is adapted from HFEA 2006 and SART 2005 reports.
It is important to note that even if a pregnancy does occur, problems can arise such as ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage. The likelihood of multiple pregnancy is about 25-30% (usually twins).
What is the risk of multiple pregnancies after egg donation?
Multiple pregnancy rates varied between 25% and 38%, mainly twins. The main reason for multiple pregnancies is replacement of more than one embryo. There is a trend to reduce the number of embryos transferred to one to reduce the risk (SART 2005 and HFEA 2006).
Some studies have reported an increased risk of obstetric complications such as miscarriage, diabetes and pre-eclampsia in women who conceived using donor eggs. However, Liacer and co-workers (ESHRE 2007) reported no such differences when they compared the obstetric outcome in donor egg recipients and women who conceived by IVF using their own eggs.
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