Fertile Women Asked To Donate Eggs For Barren Women

Authorities at the Trust care Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre, a private facility in Kumasi, are asking fertile Ghanaian women to donate their eggs for women having challenges in conceiving. The appeal follows the successful delivery of the first set of quadruplets through in-vitro fertilization, IVF. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a process by which an egg is fertilized by sperm outside the body. IVF is a major treatment for infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman�s ovulatory process, removing ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from the woman�s ovaries and letting sperm fertilize them in a fluid medium in a laboratory. The fertilized egg (zygote) is cultured for 2�6 days in a growth medium and is then transferred to the mother�s uterus with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy. The first successful birth of a �test tube baby�, Louise Brown, occurred in 1978. Robert G. Edwards, the physiologist who developed the treatment, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. The delivery of the quadriprulet by IVF, which is the first of its kind in Kumasi after Accra and Tema, was done on a 42 year woman who had been married to 14 years without a child. The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital achieved a similar feat recently where a triplet was delivered by IVF. The latest IVF babies, three males and a female, together with their 42-year old mother are doing well according to Dr. Isaac Kofi Adu, the Embryologist at the Trust Care Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre, who spoke to Ultimate Radio. �This couple has been married for fourteen good years without any babies. The woman is forty-two years of age, so upon assessment, we got to know that we have to do In vitro fertilization for them, so we started with their normal process. The Husband went and the wife went through the normal screening. On the D-day, after stimulation with hormonal injections we took the husband�s sperm and the woman�s egg and we fertilized them in the laboratories, so in a short while we implanted the embryos and then after two weeks, a pregnancy test was conducted and she was pregnant. So we waited for eight weeks and we did ultrasound scan. We monitored and assisted her through the obstetrics way for her to get to 34 weeks and then we brought the babies out�. Isaac Kofi Adu explained the health of babies delivered through the IVF system is equally healthy like those delivered naturally. �In vitro fertilization is not too different from the natural cycle; we have some babies who are even conceived in seven months. So if incubators are there to help such baby to get to their normal date is just like what we have�. Mr. Kofi Adu is however appealing to fertile Ghanaian women not to shun away from donating their eggs for women who have challenges conceiving. �For men, its easy getting sperm donors, but it�s not easy to find female donors; because we need more of the females than the males because eggs are not easy coming. And with our culture, the women are between 40 and 45 years and their eggs are of poor quality. So when it happens that way, no matter how good the sperm of the husband is; it can�t still get pregnancy out of their own eggs, so we can only appeal to the young ladies that if per chance they can assist us serve the public, we will be grateful�. �It�s better for you to come and donate to us than to get yourself pregnant and aborting the baby which may cause problems to your uterus late in life. We have a pool so whatever we take we still have a lot and because it�s a medical way of taking it it�s not going to affect your future development. So if the young ladies are hearing or reading this, they should walk in and let�s see how best they can assist us to also assist the aged who are not fortunate in their marital homes to get pregnant�.