Women with low numbers of eggs left in their ovaries or who are deemed to have poor quality eggs may be told that their best chances of conceiving are by using donor eggs. Women who are presented with this option may worry that their children will not carry their genetic information, but there is evidence that the mother’s uterine environment can influence the genetics of the unborn child.
Recent research has shown that genetic material present in the mother’s womb is absorbed by the blastocyst around the time of implantation¹. The role of this genetic material, termed microRNA, is to regulate gene expression in the developing embryo, influencing which genes in the DNA of the donor egg are turned on and which are turned off¹. In fact, this research was inspired, in part, by the observation that children of mothers relying on egg donors had unexpected physical characteristics in common with their mother, despite the use of an egg donor².
And there is even more good news for women who need to rely on an egg donor. Recent research has found that women in a donor egg cycle could increase their chances of live birth by over three-and-a-half times by incorporating whole-systems traditional Chinese medicine and pre and post implantation acupuncture³. Women pursuing whole-systems traditional Chinese medicine care received an average of 11 acupuncture visits in preparation for and along with the egg donor cycle³.
References
Vilella, F. et al. 2015. Hsa-miR-30d, secreted by the human endometrium, is taken up by the pre-implantation embryo and might modify its transcriptome. Development; 142: 3210–21.
Scutti, S. 2015. Infertile mom’s genetics, via microRNAs, get passed on to her egg donation child. Medical Daily, October 5, 2015.
Hullender Rubin, LE. 2015. Impact of whole systems traditional Chinese medicine on in-vitro fertilization outcomes. Reproductive Biomedicine Online; 30: 602–12.
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