Oocyte donation does not affect future reproductive outcome: a follow-up study.

Introduction: With the trend toward delaying pregnancy into the late 30s, an
increasing number of women depend on oocyte donation to attain motherhood.
Donors are typically young and healthy, but studies investigating the long-term
medical and psychological impact of donating oocytes are scarce. We present
here the results of a study that we conducted to assess fecundity and psychological
well-being of women who have been oocyte donors.
Material and Methods: We developed a standardized telephone questionnaire
to evaluate reproductive health in donors before and after oocyte donation.
The questionnaire had been constructed so that it would elicit responses that
produce qualitative and quantitative data regarding the donation experience. A correlation analysis was performed between demographic features, the perceived
physical and psychosocial burden of the procedure, possible regret, the
intention to repeat oocyte donation and recommendation. All analyses were
performed in SPSS 19.0 and by using the X2-test for categorical variables and
the Kruskal-Wallis or Mann-Whitney U-test for continuous variables.
Results: Contact details were available from 307 oocyte donors who had undergone
treatment at UZ Brussel between 1999 and 2010. Of those, 205 could
be contacted by telephone and 194 (94.6%) consented to participate in the
study. The average follow-up since the first donation was 3.7 years (SD ± 2.1
y). In four out of 243 oocyte donation cycles (1.6%), a complication was recorded:
three cycles (0.9%) resulted in a severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
(OHSS) requiring hospital admission and there was one case (0.3%)
of ovarian torsion. Sixty donors (30.9%) reported active attempts to conceive
after the donation procedure, six (10%) of whom did not conceive within a period
of 12 months: three women eventually conceived spontaneously within 18
months, whereas the other three conceived after fertility treatment. 3.6% of the
donors expressed regret because of discomfort or medical complications after
the procedure, while 86.6% of the respondents would recommend oocyte donation
to others. A positive recommendation was significantly correlated with the
absence of physical complications (p = 0.01), with whether relatives and friends
were informed of the donation (p = 0.025) and with the perception of having
received adequate counseling before the donation (p = 0.01).
Conclusion: Our study shows that oocyte donation does not affect fecundity
of oocyte donors and provide reassurance for prospective oocyte donors
with regard to the medical and psychosocial consequences of the procedure.
Although side effects are usually mild and complications are rare, they do have
an important impact on the donors' attitude towards egg donation. These findings
underline the importance of safe ovarian stimulation protocols and egg
retrieval procedures in oocyte donors, to minimize the treatment burden and
the risk of complications because these significantly affect women's attitudes
towards further oocyte donations.