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Singaporeans head to Malaysia, elsewhere to find IVF egg donors
Singaporeans have travelled as far as the United States and Australia to find an egg donor to help them have a baby, but many have also gone to Malaysia, checks by The Straits Times showed.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
www.straitstimes.com
Egg donation in Malaysia costs just S$16,300 (RM50,000) all inclusive with IVF procedure !!!
S’poreans head to Malaysia, elsewhere to find egg donors
Singaporeans have travelled as far as the United States and Australia to find an egg donor to help them have a baby, but many have also gone to Malaysia, checks by The Straits Times showed. Ms Christine Gautaman, who runs Heart to ART, a firm in Selangor that matches couples to egg donors, told ST about 20 per cent of her clients are Singaporeans who require an egg donor, a surrogate mother, or both. For example, she has had Singaporean couples where the wives were in their 20s but suffered from premature ovarian failure. In such a case, the ovaries stop functioning normally before the age of 40, and the woman would require donor eggs to conceive. Her other Singaporean clients are often older, some in their 40s. She said Singaporeans prefer to use an anonymous egg donor as they have no ties to the donor and can raise the child as their own.
The cost of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) using an egg donor is about RM50,000 (S$16,300). She said this covers the fees paid to the egg donor, the treatment to retrieve the donor’s eggs and the IVF procedure for the mother-to-be, which is performed in Malaysia.
Ms Gautaman did not say how much the donors are paid. She added that the egg donors at her agency are generally between the ages of 21 and 32, and many are degree holders. Some are even doctors, lawyers and accountants, she said. “These ladies are very well aware of the gift of life they are giving to their recipients and although they do receive some remuneration for their time and effort, they generally are doing this to help others,” said Ms Gautaman.
From January next year, women aged 45 and older will be allowed to undergo IVF here. Doctors cheered the move but they pointed out that many of these older women would need donor eggs to conceive even if they are allowed to undergo IVF here.
Dr Sadhana Nadarajah, senior consultant of the reproductive medicine department at the KK Women’s
and Children’s Hospital, explained that women in their late 40s and 50s will have to use donor eggs to
get pregnant. For women in that age group, if they are not menopausal, most of their eggs may be genetically abnormal by then, and it will be challenging to conceive using their own eggs, she said.
However, there are some women in their 20s who suffer from premature menopause and will also need
donor eggs to conceive. Doctors say egg donors in Singapore are uncommon due to the tedious procedures involved, the fact that they cannot be paid and that people are just uncomfortable with the idea as the child would be biologically related to them.
None of the five women The Straits Times approached who used egg donors was willing to be interviewed.
