An interesting article

I thought this was an interesting article that was reported by the BBC


A Canadian mother has frozen her eggs for use by her seven-year-old daughter, who is likely to become infertile.

Should the girl opt to use the eggs and gain regulatory approval, she would effectively have a baby that was her half-brother or sister.

Critics said the work, presented at a fertility conference in Lyon, was deeply concerning.

But the doctors from the McGill Reproductive Center, Montreal, called the donation an act of motherly love.

Also, the girl and any future partner would have a choice as to whether to use the eggs or not, they said.

The girl, Flavie Boivin, cannot have children naturally because of a chromosomal condition called Turner's syndrome.

Desperate to help, mum Melanie, who is 35 and a lawyer, investigated whether she could donate her own eggs.

After much research, she came across Professor Seang Lin Tan's team at McGill who run an egg freezing programme for cancer patients and those who want to delay childbearing.

Melanie said she discussed the decision with her partner and Flavie's father, Martin Cote, also 35 and a financial analyst.

Emotional impact

"We were concerned about the ethical questions - would I look at the child as my grandchild or as my own? We were also concerned about the financial impact, the physical impact on me and the emotional impact on the family."

After a year they decided to go ahead.

"What made us sure was the fact that I was there to help my daughter. If I could do anything in my power to help her I had to do it and because of my age I had to do it now.

"I told myself if she had needed another organ like a kidney I would volunteer without any hesitation and it is the same kind of thought process for this."

Melanie said her daughter would be the real mother as she would be caring for the child.

"I do not want to oblige her to use the eggs; I want to give her the option."

Professor Tan said they had asked for the advice of an independent ethics committee.

"The ethic committee agreed to it because the mother giving to a daughter is out of love and it is up to the daughter and partner in future years to decide whether to use the eggs or not.

"And ethical considerations change with time. Who knows what the ethics will be in 20 years from now."

Identity problems

Professor Tan said this was the first case of mother-to-daughter egg donation. There have been cases of donation from sister to sister.

TURNER'S SYNDROME
A genetic condition that causes impaired growth and learning difficulties
Destroys eggs, leading to an unusually early menopause

Dr Richard Kennedy, of the British Fertility Society, said: "This altruistic behaviour is not dissimilar to the scenario where a parent donates a kidney to a child.

"In this case, instead of using eggs from an unknown donor, she will get the opportunity to know the source.

"Although this means the resulting offspring will be similar in genetics, an unrelated sperm will be used - and this means that the offspring will not be a true sister."

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, expressed sympathy with the family, but could not support storing the mother's eggs.

She said: "The psychological welfare of the baby itself has to be the principal concern.

"Such a baby would be a sibling of the birth mother at the same time as the direct genetic offspring of the grandmother donor.

"In psychiatry we are hearing more and more of children suffering from identity problems, and specifically a condition called 'genealogical bewilderment'. Could it possibly get more bewildering than this?

"We have to stop thinking of women only in terms of their reproductive potential.

"The daughter could live a full and happy life without having children of her own."


I feel that the last sentence comes from someone who has not stuggled with infertility. I also wasn't aware that it was possible to freeze eggs, I thought so far they were unable to survive the defrosting process?? Anyway I thought it was interesting.

Message edited 7/7/2007 5:45:44 AM.

Re: An interesting article

That is interesting and apparently they are doing some groundbreaking stuff in fertility research.
I just read the other day that a facility in California had figured out how to freeze follicles and then develop them into eggs later on.
Here's the article...

One of the newest techniques is in vitro maturation, or I.V.M., which makes fertilization possible without the hormone injections that have been used to make several eggs mature in a single cycle. Doctors have found that a few days before ovulation, as many as 30 to 50 egg follicles have begun to mature. Normally, only one will fully ripen for ovulation, and the rest are lost. But if the eggs are removed before ovulation, many of them can be matured in the laboratory.
''We may be able to get about 15 of them out, and about 7 or 8 of those may mature,'' said Dr. Barry Behr, an embryologist who directs the in vitro fertilization laboratories at Stanford. ''Five or six of them may fertilize, and two or three of the embryos may be healthy.''
The maturation method may also provide a key to perfecting egg freezing, said Dr. Richard P. Marrs, medical director for California Fertility Partners in Los Angeles. In vitro practitioners have long been able to freeze embryos and achieve pregnancies by thawing and implanting them. Sperm are also relatively easy to freeze. But success in freezing eggs has been limited.
The difficulty is that in fully mature eggs the structures containing genes are spread out and ready to divide, and even a slight drop in temperature tends to shatter the chromosomes, Dr. Marrs said. Freezing follicles is easier, and theoretically, Dr. Marrs said, doctors may one day be able to use the techniques of I.V.M. to mature follicles after they are thawed.
Doctors are also working to improve the freezing of mature eggs, Dr. Marrs said, by bringing them to minus-60 degrees Celsius from room temperature in a few seconds.

Re: An interesting article

I heard about this on the radio the other day. It's definitely a progressive idea. People were calling in with their opinions. Some were all for it, others were not.

How are you feeling BTW???