Donation of fertilized uterine ova to infertile women

Abstract

Nonsurgical recovery of a preimplantation conceptus from the uterus of a fertile donor woman with transfer to an infertile recipient woman and subsequent pregnancy has been described previously. In this report, we describe the performance of 56 nonsurgical uterine lavages, recovery of 23 ova, and transfer of 17 ova with production of 8 viable pregnancies. Four pregnancies resulted in healthy infants, two aborted, and two are progressing normally. We describe a case of a woman donating an ovum to her sister, with birth of a healthy child. We also describe a viable pregnancy resulting from nonsurgical ovum transfer to a woman with no ovaries. Donation of ova by uterine lavage is a new method of overcoming human infertility; it is nonsurgical, has a low complication rate, and may be repeated several times until it produces pregnancy.