Some of the most frequent doubts or fears among patients when facing an egg donation treatment are; what is the donor selection process like or will my baby look like me?
Egg donation is a treatment that can be performed thanks to donors. In this case, the fertilization process is carried out in the laboratory with the eggs of a donor and the sperm of the couple (or in some cases of a donor). In order for the baby to resemble the mother, the specialized matching team carries out a very rigorous search among all the donors to select only those that are compatible with the patient. When we talk about compatibility, we do so from a phenotypic point of view and from a genetic point of view. The patient or the fertility clinic can also be part of this selection. All they have to do is access http://www.ovobankid.com/ and apply online for a batch of eggs. This option of choosing the donor by her photograph is only available to assisted reproduction centers and patients in the United States and Canada, where donors have an open identity by the law.
OVOMATCH: FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY
For the rest of the countries like Europe, the United Kingdom, or Ireland, the selection of the donor can be possible through Ovomatch mobile application, which allows patients to find the donor that physically resembles them the most. Through this completely free mobile app, the patient will be able to see compatible donors with the most similar physical features to the patient (recipient). The patient only has to register in the application, complete a series of personal details (age, features…), select the batch and the app will show the number of compatible donors.
After that, the Ovobank ID team will manage the shipment of the batch of eggs to the fertility clinic in the country where the patient is located.
Will the baby look like me?
In recent years, studies have been published that show that the baby can indeed inherit something from the pregnant mother. Epigenetics is the exchange of information that takes place between the mother and the embryo in the mother’s womb. In the case of egg donation, although the genetic information of the embryo comes from the donor, the mother can modify this genetic information.
Ovobank ID donors
Ovobank ID donors are girls between 18 and 33 years old, who are in good health, both physically and psychologically, this is checked after passing a series of exhaustive gynecological, serological and genetic tests. At Ovobank ID, we only accept 34% of the donors, those we consider suitable after passing the aforementioned tests. Another selection screening is carried out by Ovobank ID’s specialized team, which is in charge of phenotypic matching with the recipient patient and the donor. Another of the tests that can be carried out, if the patients wish, is the Genetic Compatibility Test (GCT), which allows the genetic information of the donor to be analyzed with that of the recipient woman’s partner, with the aim of reducing the transmission of genetic diseases. This information will be compared by selecting the ideal donor, so that patient and donor do not share mutations in the same genes.
Thanks to new technological advances and the study of the exome, more than 50,000 mutations in more than 2,000 genes can be analyzed, which allows patients who wish to request this study to carry out the treatment with complete safety and confidence and thus fulfil the long-awaited dream of patients to start a family.
