Donate eggs and nurture life
PROCEDURE HELPS CHILDLESS COUPLES TO HAVE OWN BABIES
AFTER being inspired by her sister, who did not have children, Ofentse Manzoor decided to donate her eggs to a family who would be in need of them.
After doing her own research, the 31-year-old mother of three said she was willing to even donate her eggs to someone in her family if they needed children.
“On Facebook I found a link to Vitalab [a fertility clinic in Sandton, Johannesburg] and I did some research and asked questions, ” she said.
Manzoor said she discussed with her sister about donating her eggs, but her sister was shocked at the decision.
In September last year, she made her first visit to Vitalab. The egg retrieval took place a month later.
“I did not know anything about egg freezing or donation before I made the decision to do [it], but at the clinic they explained everything so I could understand.”
Manzoor made the decision to anonymously donate her eggs, which meant she would neither know which couple received her eggs nor would the couple have any access to her.
“I wanted to help someone who doesn ’ t have a baby. I did not need to know the couple.”
She said she hoped her sister would be open to using the eggs to have her own children.
Manzoor said she would be open to donating again as she is eligible to do so again this month.
Calista Hardwick, marketing manager at Vitalab, said the clinic generally waits four months between egg retrievals, so Manzoor should be ready for her next cycle.
Dr Lawrence Gobetz, a reproduction medicine specialist at Vitalab, explained the importance of egg freezing and donating.
“A woman is at her peak to have a baby between the ages of 18 and 24.
Due to changes, women are choosing to have children a lot later than that after they have established careers,” Gobetz said.
He said a woman is born with a set amount of eggs. “A woman on average loses between 100 and 1 000 eggs every month for one egg to win the race (ovulate).
So there is a natural loss of eggs in numbers as well as the ageing process of the eggs.”
He said when women delay child-bearing they lose out on their best years of capabilities in terms of falling pregnant. “Women under the age of 35 with big career plans should consider egg freezing.
Women should not be under the misconception that they can have children after the age 38.”
If a woman, for whatever reason, cannot conceive naturally, she could use donated eggs to have a baby. This means that the child would then have the father ’ s DNA as well as the DNA of the donor.
“You are going to give birth to someone else ’ s gene pool,” Gobetz explained.
He said egg donation requires a lot of factors to be considered.
“There is no proper donor regi- stry in South Africa. We need a data bank.
“In South Africa, the law states that the remuneration for egg donating is R6 000, but we discourage this from becoming a commodity, ” Gobetz said.
With each donation cycle, they try to retrieve a minimum of six eggs or about 12 to freeze.
He said it was important to note that for the women who are donating eggs, it is not like borrowing or depleting the eggs.
It is similar to blood donation as the woman would not be using their eggs at that point and they can instead give them to someone else who needs them.
Regardless of the misconception that black people do not consider egg freezing or donation, Hardwick said Vitalab ’ s biggest clientele are black people.
“We get a lot of black women, even from other parts of Africa ... and women aged between 30 and 40 are our regular clients.”
He said women looking to donate eggs should be aware that certain contraceptives like implants, injectables, and certain IUDs [intrauterine device or coil] do not allow for them to donate.