Why Female Eggs Donation Must Be Regulated

…dangerous trend from charity to booming business

By Tunde Opalana

Egg donation means a young woman gives some of her eggs to help another woman or a couple have a child.

Donate eggs are just cell that could become part of a pregnancy when fertilized. Therefore, donated eggs are not children, The baby from the process belongs to the people (Couple who fertilized the egg to become a baby). Such eggs are used in In- Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure.

Donations are normally done during menstrual cycle and the process starts with hormone injection and completed with eggs retrieval which takes duration of between 13 to 15 days, according to medical prescription.

The injection is to help donors’ ovaries produce more eggs.

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Screening for eligibility to donate is a pre- condition before the process. Apart from determining the donor’s genotype, screening is to ensure that the donor is free from transmittable such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, Tuberculosis and other life threatening infections.
This afford donors the opportunity of freely undergo medical checks they might not have the financially strength to undergo.

While donors might be doing beneficiaries favour to get pregnant, they are being paid for their ‘kind gesture’.

But it is shocking to note that egg donation has gone beyond charity to a full blown business which has entangled young women, ranging from teenage girls in secondary school, ladies in institutions of higher learning, Carter ladies, single mothers and even house wives.

The Daily Times findings revealed that donors are paid sums ranging from N150,000 to N400,000 by families in dire need of eggs donation. This depends on locality and standard of the medical facilities.

Our findings also revealed a shoddy deal by middle- men in the thriving business of eggs donation. There are agencies who registered with a few of the clinics to scout for donors. The agencies as the go- between the medical facilities, donors and beneficiaries determine what to collect from beneficiaries and what to pay the donors.

These agencies give out contractual agreement forms to donors in which terms and conditions are clearly spelt out.

It was unfortunately found out the many of these desperate donors do not care about the conditions contained therein in the agreement document but are majorly concerned about what they are to get at after donation.

Anonymous confessions of majority of such donors revealed they are in dire needs of money for many reasons such as; payment of house rents, children school fees, payment for medical bills of aged parents or siblings and academic fees by helpless students in higher institutions.

But while the reasons for donating eggs might sound considerable, some of the donors are not mindful of risks associated with donation.

A senior nursing matron in one of the government hospitals in. Abuja simply identified as Aunty Comfort explained a few medical risks associated with egg donation.

According to her, “hormone injections and the egg retrieval process can cause discomfort or complications such as swollen stomach, headache and cramps likened to such that happened during menstrual periods”.

She added a that jabs of hormone injection could be painful but has to be endured because the injection stimulates ovaries into producing mature eggs for harvest (donation).

She warned of the risk of frequent donation. According to her ” some of these young girls do donate more than three times in a year. They do not know that eggs donation is like blood donation.

According to her, donations shouldn’t be more than six times in a lifetime. “Too many donations like over six cycles could harm future fertility of such young donor,” she said

She however added that eggs donation is not life threatening.

She added that donors might be denied sexual intercourse enjoyment as they are usually advised to abstain from sexual intercourse with their partners during the 15 days eggs donation period.

A true confession by Anne said she was lured into egg donation by a friend in a school hostel in one of the higher institutions in Nasarawa State who told her that “egg donation is not harmful because if you don’t donate you still have to flush them out during monthly menstrual flow”

She said though she ventured into the business innocently, she was irked by the risk of being exposed to sexual advances from amorous male medical officers.

Anne said “I felt embarrassed to open up myself before a make gynaecologist. I ran to a nurse within the hospital who told me there is nothing wrong in a male doctor seeing my nakedness. The nurse went ahead to tell me that do I have an option of determining who attend to me in the labour room?.”

A lady who simply introduced herself as Idara, a single mother said making money from eggs donation is dignifying than going into prostitution

Donations should be carried out in or handled by licenced clinic or hospitals both public and private. Some of them are duly registered by the Association of Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH. Findings revealed that there are numerous unregistered health facilities where egg donations go on daily across the country without regulation.

The Daily Times gathered that effort was made in the past to regulate eggs donation by initiating a bill for the establishment of the Nigerian Assisted Reproduction Authority.

The bill passed second reading in 2012 but did not go beyond that legislative stage. Efforts to get the detail of the bill failed.

However, Section 53 of the National Health Act “criminalises the exchange of human tissues and blood products for money”.