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PurposeTo evaluate self-reported survey data provided by US oocyte donors on their experiences with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and possible correlations between OHSS severity and number of oocytes retrieved, trigger type, and prior OHSS history.MethodsAn 85-question retrospective survey was administered online. Survey questions included demographic information, reasons for donating, immediate per-cycle experiences and outcomes, perceptions of informed consent, and perceived impact of donation on long-term health. Quantitative Data for this study was collected between February 2019 and September 2020 via QualtricsXM (January 2019), an online survey platform. Follow-up interviews were also conducted. Participants were recruited via fertility clinics, egg donation agencies, and online forum. The research was approved by the University of California, San Francisco Institutional Review Board (#14-14765).ResultsOf 420 initiated US oocyte donor online surveys, 289 (68%) respondents provided detailed information on per cycle experiences with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, number of oocytes retrieved, and trigger type over a total of 801 cycles. On cycles where donors reported receiving GnRH agonist triggers (n = 337), they reported milder OHSS compared to cycles with hCG or dual triggers. Among donors undergoing multiple retrieval cycles, the severity of OHSS in second cycles was strongly associated with OHSS severity in first cycles.ConclusionSelf-reported OHSS in oocyte donors is lower in GnRH antagonist stimulation protocols combined with GnRHa trigger and in cycles where donors reported fewer than 30 oocytes retrieved. Donors who reported severe OHSS on a prior cycle were significantly more likely to experience severe OHSS on a subsequent cycle.

Objective This article explores the interactions and digital practices of people involved in an online community dedicated to surrogacy and egg donation in the province of Québec, Canada. Background Sociodigital networks, with the emergence of platforms such as Facebook groups, provide a space to discuss assisted reproduction, seek advice, offer support, and connect with other Internet users to negotiate and establish a third‐party reproduction agreement. Method This study is based on a long‐term ethnographic field within a Facebook group, and individual interviews conducted with 22 members of this community. The data collected were analyzed inductively according to the principles of grounded theory. Results Three themes emerged from the online interactions and stories of the women we met. First, the publication of intended parents' testimonies is the preferred method of finding a surrogate or egg donor match and is reminiscent of the language and rituals associated with dating sites. Second, the expression of legal and financial concerns occupies a prominent place in the group discussions, given the lack of a legislative framework in this Canadian province and the variability of interpretations of the current legal framework. Third, the choice made by surrogates and donors to be involved in an online community is not random and sometimes indicates of a desire to establish a sense of control over the process and to negotiate the modalities without the presence of an intermediary. Conclusion and implications Facebook groups dedicated to infertility and assisted reproduction appear to be more than simply matchmakers, as the interactions that occur there perform various functions. In the absence of a formal organization dedicated to parents, surrogates, and donors in Québec, the online community becomes a place for information sharing, support, and networking. This offers avenues of intervention for professionals who need to reflect on and consider how online communities dedicated to third‐party reproduction may influence their practice.

Eggs and sperm are parallel bodily goods in that each contributes half of the reproductive material needed to create life. Yet these cells are produced by differently sexed bodies, allowing for a comparative analysis of how the social process of bodily commodification varies based on sex and gender. Drawing on interview and observational data from two egg agencies and two sperm banks in the United States, this article compares how staff recruit, screen, market, and compensate women and men donors. Results show how gendered norms inspire more altruistic rhetoric in egg donation than in sperm donation, producing different regimes of bodily commodification for women and men. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for debates in sociology of gender about biological differences among women and men and the cultural norms attributed to these differences; debates in economic sociology about how social factors shape the expansion of the market; and debates in medical sociology about the intersection of the market and medical practice.

In the course of their work, medical teams are routinely exposed to difficult and stressful situations. The few studies in the literature that have examined physicians’ perceptions and responses to such situations have focused primarily on the fields of emergency medicine and chronic and terminal illness. However, the field of fertility medicine can also evoke complex feelings among physicians. The present qualitative study examined the perceptions of fertility physicians treating women undergoing egg donation. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 fertility physicians, and a categorical analysis was performed. The main category to emerge was the physicians’ perception of egg donation and its implications. Two prominent themes were identified within this category: doctor–patient communication surrounding egg donation and how the idea was presented to the patient; and doctors’ perception of the implications of egg donation, including maternal identity, the relationship between mother and infant, and the mother’s sense of the child’s identity. This is the first study to consider the response to fertility treatments, a contemporary and sensitive topic, from the perspective of the physicians. The findings can contribute to physicians’ understanding of themselves and can help to devise ways to assist them in managing their emotional responses to their work for the benefit of both themselves and their patients.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with Turkish egg donors at a Northern Cypriot clinic, this article investigates tactical biosociality of cross-border egg donors that allows them to manage social relations and orient themselves in transnational egg donation (including the processes from recruitment to self-management in and beyond the clinic) under legally restrictive and socially stigmatizing conditions. Addressing the social and collective dimensions of tactics and recognizing the fragmented and conflictual forms of biosociality, it aims to shed light on the complex and ambivalent aspects of tactical biosociality in relation to selective disclosure and stigma within the context of transnational egg donation. Tactical biosociality involves possibilities for solidarity and alliances, and also for conflict and competition among egg donors. It is because for young Turkish women, egg donation retains both gendered moral and financial values that must be tactically negotiated while navigating the wider context of heteropatriarchal cultural norms and expectations, precarious economic and social conditions, biomedical profit and biopolitical control.

Background As the use of donor eggs for in vitro treatment has increased, both medically affiliated and private donor egg agencies have turned to online advertisements to recruit donors. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine provides recommendations encouraging ethical recruitment of donors, however there is no formal regulation for the informed consent process for egg donor recruitment and compensation. Underrepresentation of risks and targeted financial incentives may pose a risk to the informed consent process. Methods Data from online advertisements for egg donors active between January 1 - August 31, 2020, were collected to analyze content related to risks, Covid-19 precautions, donor payment, and desired donor characteristics. Advertisements for egg donors on Google, Craigslist, and social media were analyzed. Primary outcomes included the mention of the risks of egg donation, including the risk of Covid-19 exposure, in donor egg advertisements. Secondary outcomes included language targeting specific donor characteristics and financial compensation. Results 103 advertisements were included. 35.9% (37/103) of advertisements mentioned some risk of the egg donation process, and 18.5% (19/103) mentioned risks or precautions related to Covid-19 exposure. Of advertisements for private donor egg agencies, 40.7% (24/59) mentioned any risk, compared to 29.6% (13/44) of medically affiliated egg donation programs; the difference was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.24). Agencies targeting students and donors of a specific race were more likely to offer payments over $10,000 for an egg donation cycle. Among advertisements offering over $20,000 for donor compensation, 72.7% (8/11) recruited women under the age of 21. Conclusion Egg donor recruitment advertisements, for both medically affiliated programs and private agencies, were unlikely to mention risks including the risk of exposure to Covid-19. Non-medically affiliated private donor egg agencies were more likely to violate multiple American Society for Reproductive Medicine ethics guidelines, including offering higher than average compensation, and recruiting donors from young and vulnerable populations.

The availability of women willing to donate eggs in Spain is one of the cornerstones that has led the country to become the most desirable European destination for cross-border reproductive care. The reasons for this success are usually attributed to legal and socioeconomic conditions. Much less attention has been paid to the online strategies that fertility clinics in Spain use to inform and recruit young women to become egg providers. This paper addresses this gap by analysing online communication strategies in egg donors’ websites and social media. The narratives and rationalities they underpin are conceptualised as revealing ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’ around egg donation which coproduce new societal interests among young women. The results show that the language used recycles and repurposes egg donors’ motivations towards a normative discourse that puts altruism at the core, while, at the same time, explanations of medical processes and risks generate incomplete and misleading narratives. Finally, this paper describes how these discourses are embedded in a particular kind of branding where not only the notion of altruism is produced but also a complete identity framework. In this framework, donating eggs would not just be an act of solidarity, but would also imply belonging to a community of progressive empowered women, in control over their bodies and with modern consumption capacity: a neoliberal rationality of optimization, self-care and consumerism as forms of liberation.

More than 8% of babies born in Spain in 2014 were conceived through assisted reproductive techniques (ARTs); almost four out of every 10 babies born that year after direct-IVF depended on egg donation according to data from the Spanish Fertility Association. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with 25 professionals linked either to researching reproduction or practicing reproduction using IVF (five researchers from universities and 20 professionals from 10 reproductive clinics), this paper suggests that the complex role of eggs, indeed what they actually are today within these bioeconomies, cannot be completely understood by relying solely on the concept of egg donation. Their roles are understood to be much better apprehended and visualized using the broader idea of transference of reproductive capacity, a concept that facilitates our understanding of the socio-technical practices in which eggs are currently entangled, signified, and made sense of. Thus, I argue that we ought to stop talking about egg donation (particularly when identifying it as a “technique”) and talk instead about the socio-technical practices of transference of reproductive capacity.

Research around the world has indicated that the demand for egg donation has grown considerably among young females. This study qualitatively examines the knowledge, experiences, and motivations of young egg donors at a Nigerian health facility. In-depth interviews were conducted in Igbo and English with consenting thirty-one egg donors attending a fertility clinic in Anambra State, south-eastern Nigeria. Data were collected and analysed to generate themes with the aid of NVivo 10 software. Three themes were identified from the participants’ motivations and include (a) monetary (93.6%), (b) altruistic (3.2%), and (c) both monetary and altruistic reasons (3.2%). Findings highlighted that the differences were based on a variety of reasons in Nigeria. All the participants were literate and single, and the majority received payment. The majority (77.4%) of those who received payment mentioned that the payment was not worth the donation program. The participants preferred to be anonymous because they had not discussed their donation with their family members, and the non-acceptance of egg donation program by the Nigerian society. Given that the market for egg donation has become a common method of infertility management in Nigeria, our findings have important implications for practices, policy actions, and future research.

Medically assisted reproductive (MAR) treatments using donated oocytes are commonly applied in several countries to treat women who cannot conceive with their own gametes. Historically, in Italy, gamete donation has been prohibited but, in 2014, the law changed and gamete donation became allowed for couples undergoing MAR treatments. Consequently, in the last decade, there has been an increase in application of the oocyte donation programme. This study reports an egg-donation programme’s clinical efficacy, based on importing donated vitrified oocytes from cryo-banks located in a foreign country. For this, we conducted a retrospective analysis of data from a single reproductive unit located in Italy (Donna Salus Women’s Health and Fertility, Bozen). The study group consisted of 681 vitrified oocytes, which were warmed and culture to be replaced in 100 recipients. The survival rate after warming was 79.1% ( n = 539/681), whereas the fertilization and blastulation rates were 90.2% ( n = 486/539) and 47.9% ( n = 233/486), respectively. Positive pregnancy test, clinical pregnancy rates, and live-birth rates per embryo transfer were 37.8%, 31.1% and 28.4%, respectively. The multiple pregnancy rate was 0.7%. This study is one of the first to report on the efficacy of a donor oocyte programme in Italy using imported vitrified oocytes. The above data may reassure women who are undertaking donation programmes using vitrified oocytes imported from commercial egg banks.