Sensationalised Stories of Egg Donation & The Manchester Donors Difference

There was a feature in the news last week about women who were ‘addicted’ to egg donation.

Highly sensationalised, the article talked about egg donation as a ‘lucrative’ industry for clinics, with ‘gruelling’ procedures and doctors ‘lavishing praise’ on their egg donors, ‘striking deals’ with women for reduced cost IVF in return for their eggs.

Whilst we can’t speak for other egg donation clinics and their own policies and procedures, at Manchester Fertility, through our Manchester Donors programme, our egg donors are only ever treated with the dignity and respect they deserve where egg donor health and safety is prioritised above all else.

Here’s a small summary of our approach to our egg donors and egg donation:

Proven history of egg donation expertise

We’ve been recruiting egg donors for many years, and have a unique understanding of egg donor needs. Our expertise and personal approach has ensured we’ve grown to become one of the most successful donor egg banks in the country and a leading clinic of choice for women who want to donate eggs in the North West.

The UK’s first Donor Centre of Excellence

Manchester Fertility is the only clinic in the North West to be awarded National Gamete Donation Trust Centre (NGDT) of Excellence status. All our policies and procedures, including how we recruit and treat our egg donors, were vetted over a six month period by the NGDT, the UK charity for egg and sperm donation. This stamp of approval is your guarantee that we only ever give you the highest personal care and attention, with your needs in mind at all times, at every stage of the process.

Your health and wellbeing

You’ll only ever be given the minimum fertility drugs needed for a safe response, with clear and detailed information about what’s going to happen and how it may affect you.  Through our tailored protocols and individualised monitoring procedures, we ensure your wellbeing and reduce the risk of any side-effects of egg donation significantly. We’ll never accept you as an egg donor if we think there’s a chance your own health may be compromised. It’s why our egg donor criteria is so strict  - not every woman can and should donate eggs.

Counselling – preparing you for the future

We ensure you give careful thought to the future through implications counselling with our specialist counselling team which happens early in the process way before egg donation. This is so we can ensure that you only continue with the process if you’re prepared to be an identifiable and traceable egg donor, and understand exactly what this means for your family now and in the future.

Egg-sharing for reduced-cost IVF

Egg-sharing – egg donation which gives you reduced-cost IVF - is never offered as a ‘deal’ for your eggs. Egg-sharing must always be a considered decision, and not one made for financial reasons alone.

It’s important to realise that you’re becoming an egg donor by egg-sharing, and there are long-lasting implications of this, which you need to understand, in addition to meeting all the necessary age and health criteria.

If you are considering egg sharing just to make private IVF with us more affordable, it’s not your only option. We do offer various cost-effective, discounted funding packages for IVF/ICSI including a 100% Refund plan, Donor Eggs IVF Refund and MultiCycle plans.

Egg-sharing has helped many women who need egg donors, and those who need private IVF, to become parents. But again, not all women can and should egg-share. We will always advise you, so you can make an informed decision.

Donating eggs more than once

Whilst some women do choose to donate to our programme again, it’s not something we actively promote. You’ll only ever be allowed to donate eggs again, if you wish to, if we think it will be successful at minimal risk to you.

Supporting you as an egg donor

As a team we all support you throughout your journey as an egg donor, from our dedicated Donation Team to our fertility consultants and nurses, guiding you through the process and keeping you informed about what happens next and what you can expect. If you’re ever worried, we’re here to reassure – you’ll always have our out-of-hours contact details too.

Join Manchester Donors

Discover the Manchester Donors difference and find out why so many women choose our egg donor programme above those offered by other fertility clinics in Cheshire, Manchester and Liverpool.

Read our egg donation FAQs, our egg donor blog resource and explore the egg donation process. If you’d like more information or would like to apply, call our friendly team on 0161 300 2734 or apply online here.