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All you need to know before picking a fertility treatment centre in Kenya

Health

Dear Doctor,

My husband and I are considering fertility treatment. We will need a donor for the procedure. Is this available in Kenya or will we have to go abroad?

Alison

 

Dear Alison,

A cautionary tale came up in the US recently. A young woman used a direct-to-consumer genetics company to try and trace her ancestry.

She eventually found out she was conceived with donated sperms, likely originating from her parents’ fertility doctor! The parents all along believed they had used anonymous sperms from someone else.

Be very cautious with donor fertility programs, you may end up with more than you bargained for, either immediately or well into the future.

Advanced fertility treatments are accessible locally, albeit only for the selected few due to high costs and limited insurance coverage. The clamour to use donated eggs, sperms or embryos (fertilised eggs) appears to be on an upward trend. No individuals, or couples, should ever hastily get themselves into donor fertility programmes without fully comprehending the complexity of the process.

But who really needs a donor? At one extreme, there are women with no eggs of their own and men with no sperms as well. Such situations immediately render themselves suitable for donated eggs or sperms, or even embryos.

With advancing age, egg numbers become depleted and have poor quality, necessitating older women to require donated eggs. Sperm numbers and quality decline with age as well. And then there are single women who may want to conceive with donated sperms, and same sex relationships. Several other scenarios render themselves to use of donors.

Eggs, sperms and embryo donors must be highly selected. They need to be young and with good reproductive potential. They also must be in good health, and free of transmissible and genetically inheritable diseases.

They must also be of sound mind, and must not be coerced to donate. Those donating may either do it out of goodwill, or expect a reasonable fee to cover associated expenses. The process can either be anonymous to both the donor and the recipient(s), or both parties may choose to waive anonymity.

Once there is no ambiguity about the need for a donor, the process can then start. Both donors and recipients must complete a thorough clinical evaluation to confirm suitability of proceeding with treatment. A psychological review is also recommended in order to explore non-clinical matters related to the complexities of donor fertility treatments. Both parties must complete consent forms and relevant disclaimers.

Regardless of a well-executed donation/recipient fertility process, several matters may still arise in the future. One recurrent issue is maintenance of anonymity if this was agreed from the start. Some countries have legislated donation programmes, while others like Kenya don’t have a legal framework in place yet.

The UK for example mandates a donor/recipient national register, and allows those of legal age to access information that may reveal if they were born out of a donor process. This basically de-identifies the donor who can eventually be contacted by the resultant child.

 

 

Dr Alfred Murage is a Consultant Gynecologist and Fertility Specialist. [email protected]

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