Charlotte IVF Experts Issue Urgent Call for Egg Donors, Eye New Recrui...( Wait time for donations is spiralin...),Health

Wait time for donations is spiraling for older couples wanting to start

families

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Radical shifts in parenting trends have fertility experts at Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte (REACH) eyeing far more aggressive means to recruit young women for egg donations in 2008 -- including new outreach through the Internet -- in efforts to stem an alarmingly widening gap between supply and demand.

Average wait time for donated eggs for older women wishing to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization (IVF) has nearly doubled in the last two years, REACH doctors said. The increase is due to a national trend toward older mothering -- spotlighted by TV host Nancy Grace's recent announcement that she had given birth to twins at age 48.

"More women believe that if they maintain healthy lifestyles they are capable of achieving pregnancy well into middle age. But the truth is that after age 35, a woman's eggs become less viable," said Dr. Nancy Teaff of REACH.

Celebrities exacerbate the myth by being public about their late life motherhood but private about how they did it, Teaff said. Holly Hunter had twins at 47, Geena Davis at 48, and Jane Seymour at 44. "Most women that age use IVF with donor eggs to become moms," Teaff said. About 12 percent of IVF attempts in 2005 involved the use of donated eggs in the United States, according to the CDC.

Many of REACH's patients are successful career-oriented professionals who delayed childbearing. When they did not conceive easily they did not seek fertility care as soon as they should have, which further delayed successful treatment, Teaff said.

REACH doctors hope to raise awareness of the swelling need for donors through radio advertising and Web communications in 2008.

"It's not easy to become a donor; many candidates do not pass the medical screening," said Teaff. Potential donors may apply o
'/>"/>