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 07 September 2008 03:24 BST

Mother freezes eggs for daughter

Tuesday, 03 Jul 2007 14:19
The donor's daughter could decide to use the eggs in the future
A mother has decided to freeze her own eggs for possible use by her daughter, who has a rare fertility disorder.

Should the girl decide to use the eggs in later life she would be the first person to give birth to what would be her own half-sister or brother.

The mother, 35-year-old Melanie Boivin, would also be the biological parent of her own grandchild.

Ms Boivin has two other children who do not have the rare fertility disorder, called Turner Syndrome (TS), which involves oocyte loss during early embryonic life.

The use of donated oocytes is therefore a successful alternative for women with TS and often donors come from among family members.

However, second-degree relatives are generally considered more ethically acceptable than first-generation, and mother-to-daughter oocyte donation has never been attempted before because of age differences.

This particular case involves a young and "very fertile" mother and Ms Boivin therefore decided to create an oocyte bank for her daughter using serial IVF egg vitrification.

The end result saw a total of 21 oocytes vitrified after two cycles of IVF, giving the daughter and her future partner the option of using the eggs.

Ms Boivin said she was "concerned about the ethical questions" as well as the "financial impact, the physical impact on me and the emotional impact on the family".

After a year of deliberating, they decided to go ahead. "What made us sure was the fact that I was there to help my daughter … if I could do anything in my power to help her I had to do it and because of my age I had to do it now," Ms Boivin added.

"I told myself if she had needed another organ like a kidney I would volunteer without any hesitation and it is the same kind of thought process for this."

The research was carried out by the McGill Reproductive Centre at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Montreal, Canada.

The study's findings were presented at the ESHRE conference in Lyon, France.
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