Donor Insemination
An Alternative Pregnancy Option

The use of donor insemination during infertility is an option for a couple who have previously been unable to conceive. Insemination would precede one of the Assisted Reproductive Technology techniques applied.

Donors can donate either sperm or egg and in addition, once the egg and sperm have fertilized and an embryo has formed, the embryo can also be donated. The use of donors as an infertility option, together with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Gamete Intra Fallopian Transfer (G.I.F.T) has allowed many childless couples realize their dream of having a child of their own.

Sperm donors

The more popular form of donation is from a male in the form of a sperm donor. The process for a male to donate his sperm is rather straight forward, and many men voluntarily become sperm donors simply to provide a couple with the chance of having a baby. It is for this reason that sperm banks exist for preserving and storage of the donation, with a process referred to as cryopreservation.

The use of sperm donation, whether from the natural father to be, or a donor, is increasingly used to bring about conception. Males who are diagnosed with low sperm count, or any other medical condition that previously prevent them from having a baby, now stand a chance of being able to impregnate their partners. Even if the method of achieving pregnancy is with the assistance of donor insemination.

There are ART techniques available like sperm washing and ICSI - Intra cytoplasmic Sperm Injection - to assist a male with sperm disorders. As soon as the treated sperm is available, donor insemination is then applied as part of the treatment technique, which could be either artificial insemination or IVF treatment.

Sperm donation could either be from the sperm of the male partner, if no infertility reasons exist as determined from the semen analysis, or could be from an anonymous source, if required.

Egg and embryo donors

The use of donor egg in the ART technology techniques is beneficial for an older female struggling to conceive, who wishes to experience, pregnancy and childbirth, but is unable to do so with her own egg supply.

Egg donation as well as embryo donation is much harder to come by. For a woman to become an egg donor, the process to produce the egg is quite complex and requires medical intervention to produce the eggs.

As a woman produces one egg naturally, multiple eggs are required during any ART treatment and egg donation. The more eggs produced and fertilized, the more the chance of pregnancy when the embryos are transferred back into the females reproduction system.

Ovarian stimulation normally encourages the production of multiple eggs. Only a few will be used for fertilization and implantation.

Egg donation is normally as a result of eggs not used . Left over eggs can either be persevered by cryopreservation for later use by the woman, so that she does not have to go through the entire process again, or they may be made available for donation to a woman with infertility and unable to supply her own eggs.

The same is true for embryo donation. During an IVF Treatment or ZIFT process, discussed on Gamete Intra Fallopian Transfer (G.I.F.T), eggs will be fertilized outside the body in a Petri dish. Only a few embryos will be implanted into the female, depending on age and medical circumstances.

Embryos that remain and are not used in the ART process, can then be donated to an infertile couple.

Surrogacy

Surrogate mothers can be categorized as donors. After all, in theory their uterus is a form of donation for a couple to conceive their own child. Surrogacy is an alternative infertility method, when a couple are able to produce healthy sperm and egg, but have been unsuccessful in conceiving. Under such conditions they may make use of a surrogate mother to conceive their child.

Donor insemination will precede an ART technique when trying to resolve infertility.

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