Tips to Improve Egg Quality

Here are 7 Tips to Improve Egg Quality and Boost Fertility

Women often ask if there is a natural or 'at home remedy' for boosting egg quality and improving fertility and the changes of pregnancy. Dr. Hirshfeld-Cytron explains what you can do to ensure that your eggs are the best that can be when preparing for conception.

1. Stay Away from Cigarettes.

Smoking permanently speeds up egg loss in the ovaries. The chemicals in cigarettes mutate the DNA in a woman's egg cells, making some of the eggs unsuitable for conception. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and the number of eggs reduces with age, so it is best to keep eggs healthy and free of unnecessary chemicals.

2. Manage Stress.

Stress can produce hormones such as cortisol and prolactin that can interfere or halt ovulation, which also hinders egg production. Stress-reducing activities such as yoga, meditation, exercise or a warm bath can help keep stress and frustration at bay.

3. Eat Healthy.

Healthy foods improve overall health, this includes helping your eggs stay healthy and high quality, as well as improve overall fertility. Eat plenty of leafy greens, whole grains, lean meats, nuts, fresh vegetables, and fruits. Stay away from trans fats, refined carbs, processed foods or meats, and excessive salt and sugar.

4. Achieve a Normal BMI (body mass index).

Obesity has been linked to reduced fertility and decreased egg quality due to alterations of mitochondrial function and increased oxidative stress. Being overweight can also alter hormonal balance, disrupting ovulation. A body mass index (BMI) between 18.5-24.9 is recommended to achieve pregnancy. To give you an idea of what that looks like, a woman that is 5’6” falls within a normal BMI with a weight range of 115-154 lbs.

5. Boost Blood Flow.

Good egg health is aided by oxygen-rich blood flow to the ovaries. Blood flow in the body can quickly decrease from dehydration, so aim to drink 64 oz. of water each day. Yoga is a healthy and relaxing way to improve blood flow, with poses such as the lotus pose, child’s pose, reclining hero and seated forward bend offering a specific fertility benefit.

6. Invest in Supplements.

No need to break the bank on vitamins, but there are three low-cost options that can help with egg health: Coenzyme Q10, melatonin and fish oil. CoQ10 can boost mitochondrial function as well as antioxidants, improving the quality of eggs (200 mg, 3x daily); melatonin can boost antioxidants, encourage ovarian function and aid in sleep (3mg each evening); and fish oil (EPA/DHA) can help produce higher quality eggs and help reproductive function in advanced maternal age (1200-1500mg EPA + DHA daily, do not exceed 3000 mg/day).

7. Freeze Your Eggs.

If you are planning on delaying motherhood, the best way to protect your fertility future is to stop your biological clock and freeze your eggs. With time, a woman’s natural fertility declines, but frozen eggs remain the same biological age as when they are cryopreserved, boosting your chances of future success.

How does the egg donation process work?

Egg donation is a process in which a fertile woman donates an egg, or oocyte, to another woman to help her conceive. It is a part of assisted reproductive technology, or ART.

The procedure typically involves a doctor removing an egg or eggs from the donor, fertilizing them in a laboratory, and then transferring the resulting embryos into the recipient’s uterus. Doctors do this using an implantation procedure, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Sometimes, specialists at the facility may freeze some or all of the embryos for later use or implantation in different women.

Egg donation frequently benefits women who cannot use their own eggs for various reasons, including ovarian failure, avoiding congenital anomalies in the fetus, or advanced age.

One 2014 entry in the journal Fertility and Sterility suggested that 93 percentTrusted Source of all fertility centers in the United States offer egg donation. The same study indicates that the procedure results in a successful birth 49.4–50 percent of the time.

In this article, we look at the criteria for selecting donors, the procedure itself, and legal ramifications following an egg donation.

 

 

The clinic will conduct a thorough selection process for potential donors.

Specialists at the fertility facility will conduct an intensive selection process to find a suitable donor and will carefully run through the legal procedures.

Before starting the procedure, most donors will need to take medication that stops their normal menstrual cycle.

Side effects of this medication might include:

• hot flashes
• headache
• fatigue
• body aches

The donor will then take a series of fertility drugs that stimulate the ovaries to produce several eggs at once. This is known as hyperstimulation. Donors will need to self-administer this medication by injecting it under their skin or into a muscle.

Some women may experience mild side effects, such as bruising at the injection site, mood swings, and tender breasts. In rare cases, a woman may develop severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). This occurs when too many eggs develop in the ovaries. Women who develop OHSS may require hospitalization.

Donors do have a risk of pregnancy before the eggs are retrieved, so it is a good idea to avoid intercourse or use a barrier contraceptive, such as a condom.

Throughout the donation cycle, a donor will undergo frequent blood tests and ultrasound examinations to monitor their reactions to the medications.

 

During extraction

Shortly before the retrieval of the eggs, the donor will receive a final injection in preparation for the procedure.

The doctor will perform a transvaginal ovarian aspiration to remove the eggs from the donor’s ovaries. They will insert an ultrasound probe into the vagina and use a needle to remove the egg from each follicle.

During the procedure, which lasts around 30 minutes, the doctor might give the donor painkillers, sedatives, or an anesthetic.

As this is a minor procedure, a donor will not need to stay at the clinic or hospital overnight.

After donation

Some women find they need several days of rest to recover from the transvaginal ovarian aspiration. Others return to normal activities the next day.

Some programs provide aftercare to donors, but others do not. As the egg donation process can have a psychological impact, some women may find it useful to work with a counselor or psychotherapist after the procedure.

 

How does the egg donation process work?

The cost of Egg Donation in Iran

Treatment of infertility using donated eggs in Iran

Infertility treatment centers in Iran since the late 1990s, along with the world’s advanced centers, have used egg donation to treat infertile couples who suffer from low ovarian reserve or poor quality eggs. In addition to Iranian infertility couples, foreign couples can also use the egg donation services of infertility treatment centers in Iran to solve the problem of infertility. Every year, infertile couples from different countries such as Iraq, Oman, Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, UAE, etc. go to Iranian fertility treatment centers to solve their infertility problem and use egg donation in Iran.

 Egg donors are selected in accordance with certain principles and standards in Iran. Egg donation volunteers are consulted after various tests and physical health assurance; to ensure their mental health and readiness to donate. Donated eggs are examined in well-equipped Iranian laboratories, and quality eggs are selected for the next steps.

 

How much does a donated egg cost in Iran?

The cost of infertility treatment using donated eggs in Iran includes the cost of eggs and the cost of medicine, conventional tests, and the transfer of the fetus to the mother’s uterus. The cost of a donated egg service in Iran (IVF with donor eggs in Iran) is about 4,000 $. Egg donation service in reputable infertility treatment centers in Iran, in addition to high quality and world-class, has an affordable price.

couples who want to select their baby sex can use PGD service for determining embryo gender. One of the uses of the PGD technique is to determine the sex of the embryos before transferring to the uterus and pregnancy.

You can contact us to benefit from infertility treatment services using donated eggs in Iran & IVF with donor eggs in Iran.

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everything about egg donation

 

Why Use an Egg Donor?

The most common reason why single women and couples turn to egg donation is poor egg quality due to advanced maternal age. A woman’s egg quality lessens as she ages and significantly declines after age 37.

Who Uses Egg Donation?

• Couples in which the woman has poor-quality or no eggs, but who want a biological child using the male’s sperm
• Women with no ovaries but an intact uterus
• Women with genetic factors that they do not want to pass on to their children
• Women over the age of 42

There are many things to consider when thinking about using an egg donor. If you have a partner, start by exploring these questions.

Fact: The first known pregnancy achieved with a donated egg occurred in 1984. In 2016, the CDC reported approximately 9,000 births resulting from donor eggs.

Egg Donation Requirements

Egg donors undergo psychological and medical screening, which includes a thorough medical history, physical exam, and ovarian reserve assessment to determine if she is likely to be a good donor candidate. Egg donors are healthy young women, usually between ages 21 and 30.

Egg Donation Process

1. The egg donor gets hormone injections to induce ovulation of multiple eggs. Women naturally release one egg a month and the injections allow a large number of eggs to mature at the same time. Once her eggs are mature and ready for retrieval, her fertility doctor schedules the procedure.
2. The egg donor is put under sedation and her doctor uses an ultrasound guided needle inserted into each mature follicle to retrieve each egg. The lab will attempt to fertilize several eggs in a laboratory using the recipient’s partner’s sperm or selected donor sperm. This process is in vitro fertilization (IVF).
3. An embryo (fertilized egg) is then transferred into the recipient’s uterus.

In a fresh transfer cycle, the donor and the recipient’s cycles are synchronized using medication.

In a frozen transfer, the embryos are frozen and typically transferred at a later time. Frozen transfers are sometimes utilized so that preimplantation genetic screening for aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes) can be performed.

If successful, the embryo will implant into the uterine lining and develop into a healthy baby.

Egg Donor Cost and Sources

Commercial egg donor agencies recruit, screen, and match healthy donors with couples and individuals. Many infertility clinics also offer donated eggs from couples who have produced excess eggs.

In some cases, the recipient may ask a close friend or relative to donate her eggs. Recipients may choose a fresh egg donation cycle or a frozen egg donation cycle (from a frozen egg bank).

 

Egg Donation Success Factors

Success depends on many factors including the age of the egg donor, retrieval process, quality of sperm, and the recipient’s overall health.

As with all third-party reproduction processes, recipients should seek counseling to explore emotional concerns and an experienced attorney to protect their, and their potential children’s, rights

 

everything about egg donation

Egg Quality in Women

The peak fertility for women is reached around age 25 and remains about the same until approximately age 32, when it begins to decline. At age forty, the rate of decline accelerates and by age 42 a woman has lost almost 70% of her fertility potential. This trend continues until menopause, which occurs around age 51 on average in the U.S.

 

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At birth there are approximately 1-2 million eggs in the ovaries. This number falls to about 500,000 at the time of puberty and results in approximately 400 ovulations during the reproductive years. The development of eggs is controlled by the pituitary gland which releases a hormone called Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) that stimulates follicular growth. Inside of each follicle is an egg, surrounded by granulosa cells and follicular fluid. The follicle produces estrogen, which signals the brain as a feed back. At the beginning of a woman’s reproductive life span, the ovary responses readily to stimulation from the brain to produce a mature egg. However, over time the number of eggs decreases in the ovary. These remaining eggs do not respond as easily to the FSH signal from the brain, which makes more FSH in an attempt to stimulate the ovary to produce an egg. We measure the FSH and estradiol (E2) on the third day of the menstrual cycle to determine ovarian reserve. Since E2 can falsely suppress FSH, the interpretation of FSH requires that the E2 concentration be less than 40 pg/ml on same day.

An elevated FSH level does not necessarily mean that the woman is about to enter menopause. Rather, it suggests that she has entered the transitional period, which is the period that precedes the onset of menopause. Most women with increased FSH levels continue to have regular periods and ovulate. Women with markedly elevated FSH levels (greater than 20) usually do not respond adequately to stimulation with fertility medications and are best treated using donor eggs. This is even more indicated when raised FSH levels are detected in a woman over 40, whose egg quality is likely to be reduced as well.

It is important to realize that while FSH levels are relatively reliable indicators of ovarian strength and sensitivity to fertility hormones, it is largely the woman’s age that determines her inherent egg quality. While a woman in her 30s with a raised FSH is likely to have ovarian resistance to fertility drugs, the outcome may be better than someone in her 40s with normal FSH.

Women in the late reproductive years not only have significantly lower pregnancy chances, but also a high miscarriage rate due to chromosomal abnormalities in their embryos. IVF through facilitating the delivery of multiple embryos to the uterus can enhance the birthrate in such women. IVF is accordingly the treatment of choice for infertile women in their early forties, who simply do not have the time to waste on relatively non-efficacious alternatives. If conventional IVF fails using one’s own eggs, ovum donation promises outstanding success rates regardless of the woman’s age or FSH level. The live birth rate of ovum donations (regardless of the woman’s age) ranges from 50-55% per fresh cycle, not including the additional frozen cycle pregnancies.