Study: Pregnancies from Donor Eggs More Common

The average age of women who used donor eggs in 2010 was 41

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Women tried to get pregnant using donated eggs more than 18,000 times in 2010, a dramatic increase from a decade earlier, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Thursday.

There were 18,306 in vitro fertilization cycle attempts using donor eggs in 2010, up from 10,801 ten years earlier, according to the study done by researchers at Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Outcomes involving donor eggs also improved in that period: singleton births increased from 18.5% to 24.4% in 2010, and 37% of the live births at the end of the study resulted in twins, and less than 1% were triplets. Doctors aim to reduce multiple births from IVF to improve the chances that babies born are of normal birth weight, which lowers their risk of developmental problems.

According to the study, the average age of women who use donor eggs was 41 and the average age of donors was 28, unchanged from 2010.

[AP]