[BioNews, London] According to a study conducted at the University of Southern California (USC), post-menopausal women are equally as likely as younger women to conceive and give birth following egg donation.
Dr Richard Paulson and colleagues, whose research is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, studied 77 post-menopausal women on an USC egg donation programme between 1991 and 2001. The women's ages were between 50 and 63, but the study showed they had similar pregnancy and miscarriage rates to younger women.
Fifty-five of the egg donation procedures resulted in pregnancies, with 45 live births. All multiple births - six sets of twins and two triplets - were delivered by Caesarean section, as well as 68 per cent of singleton births. Twenty-five per cent of the women suffered mild pre-eclampsia and ten per cent had 'severe' pre-eclampsia. A fifth of the women developed gestational diabetes, the majority of cases being controlled with diet modification and not needing insulin injections.
Full article: http://www.ivf.net/content/index.php?page=out&id=113
