First Pregnancy from First Frozen Donor Egg Bank in the World
The first frozen donor egg bank in the world has opened and a Lexington, Kentucky couple is pregnant with the first frozen and thawed eggs from Cryo Eggs International. The first woman pregnant from the egg bank, Wendy Kennedy, says "I think everybody should know this option is available."
Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) June 21, 2005 -- Although sperm banks have been around
for decades, assisting couples or single women create wanted children, now the
first global egg bank, Cryo Eggs International, has opened in the U.S. and a
Lexington, Kentucky couple is pregnant with the first frozen and thawed eggs. "I
think everybody should know this option is available," says Wendy Kennedy, first
woman pregnant from CEI's donor egg bank.
Freezing sperm has been a much
easier proposition, but until recently, the technology did not exist to freeze
womens' eggs. Now a woman who needs young, healthy and fertile eggs to conceive
a child of her own can contact Cryo Eggs International (CEI), based in Phoenix,
Arizona, and get "matched" with a woman whose eggs are frozen. The eggs are
shipped anywhere in the world, thawed, fertilized with the husband's sperm and
transferred as an embryo to a waiting woman who wishes to experience the
pregnancy and birth of her baby.
There are many reasons for infertility,
but the most common problem for women over age 35 is simply that their eggs are
getting too old to work the way they should. Diana Thomas, managing partner of
CEI knows this only too well. "I tried for 15 years to have children – I thought
that once I wanted them, conception would be easy, but it wasn't. It was hard,
very hard to get pregnant and only after 18 procedures, from low level
technology to using a younger woman's egg, was I able to have my first son at
age 40."
The first frozen donor egg bank was formed based on new egg
freezing methods developed by Dr. Boldt, Scientific Director for CEI. For five
years, Dr. Boldt's work was overseen by an Institutional Review Board to ensure
all professional standards were met. Dr. Boldt's most recent data shows that he
has consistently achieved a greater than 60% survival rate when thawing eggs,
and an over a 30% pregnancy rate per embryo transfer procedure, when using eggs
from infertility patients. It is expected that these success rates will be
higher using donor eggs, where eggs are obtained from younger women with no
history of infertility.
Donor eggs are now commonly used in infertility
therapy worldwide. In 2001, in the U.S. alone over 12,000 women tried to
conceive using "fresh" donor eggs. Many of the problems a woman and her
physician must overcome when using "fresh" donor eggs are virtually eliminated
with a frozen donor egg from the CEI Bank. Frozen donor eggs offer unprecedented
convenience, eliminate many geographical restrictions as eggs can be shipped
world-wide and remove the risk of "failed" fresh cycles where no eggs are
retrieved as mature eggs are guaranteed when purchased from CEI. Also, the use
of frozen donor eggs essentially eliminates any of the current health hazards
from infectious disease transmission present in a "fresh" donor cycle. Women who
require donor eggs to conceive will have the opportunity to purchase eggs from
the CEI bank, which currently has over 250 eggs from educated women in their 20s
representing a variety of ethnicities. CEI is registered with the FDA and
follows or exceed all FDA guidelines for infectious disease screening.
The three experienced professionals that operate CEI include Dr. Jeffrey
Boldt, Scientific Director; Dr. James Akin, Medical Director; and Diana Thomas,
CEO and Managing Partner. Dr. Boldt developed the technology that allows for the
successful freezing and thawing of human eggs. Dr. Akin has practiced
infertility for 15 years in both an academic university setting as well as
private practice. Diana Thomas had her three children with the help of donor
eggs and has owned and operated an international egg donor recruiting agency for
eight years.
Contact Information:
Diana Thomas
CEO, Cryo Eggs
International
2250 East Palmaire Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona 85020
Phone:
602-331-2427
Fax: 602-678-0328
http://www.CryoEggsIntl.com
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Dr. Jeffrey Boldt
Scientific Director, Cryo Eggs
International
Phone: 317-621-5802
Dr. James Akin
Medical Director,
Cryo Eggs International
Phone: 859-260-1515
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb252690.htm