Old Eggs vs. New Eggs

[nuthinbutpink]

Another egg question! Since we all have children and are not infertility patients for the most part, it is somewhat shocking that IVF is not simple for us. I know many of us are AMA by the time we get around to taking measures like IVF for a girl or boy so that has made me wonder about age and egg quality.

If you are given eggs from a 28 year old and a 40 year old, can you visibly tell a difference?

Like smokers I read on your blog that you can tell(which I cannot believe anyone that is doing IVF for any reason still smokes- husband or wife!) that they are smokers' eggs.

Can you SEE age on eggs? If so, does a protocol change ever help the situation? I assume it does because we have certainly seen people cycle more than once and succeed with a protocol change, etc.

Just curious about egg quality/looks and age and IVF success and sometimes lack of for us "fertile" gals!!

[Carole]

Sadly, we can't tell a young egg from an old egg just by looking at it. The main problem with eggs from older women- what I think you mean by "old" eggs- is that these eggs are much more likely to have run into problems with the final steps of production such as incomplete chromosomal sorting and separation of chromosomes- also called non-disjunction. This can result in some of the eggs having too many or two few chromosome sets, a condition called aneuploidy. Aneuploidy in eggs (or sperm) creates aneuploidy in embryos which is never a good thing for the embryo. An embryo with aneuploidy may cease to develop or may fail to implant or may implant but result in an early miscarriage. In some cases, a child is born but with serious lifelong health issues such as seen with Downs Syndrome, caused by an extra chromosome #21, can occur. Aneuploidy is a hidden problem. You can remove one or two cells from the embryo and do a genetic test for aneuploidy to see if an embryo has aneuploidy, but there are no visible signs of aneuploidy in the egg. Aneuploidy testing is not a perfect solution either because sometimes test results are wrong or the pregnancy rates are reduced even with normal embryos because of the extra stress of biopsy and embryo freezing (to preserve the embryo while waiting for test results). All of us become infertile with time because infertility is a natural result of aging, so none of us are "fertile girls" forever. However, it is understandably shocking to patients who conceived easily the first time around to have problems trying to conceive later in life. Regarding stimulation protocol changes, that's a good question for your RE. There are some protocols that seem to work better for older women but I am no expert on stimulation cycles.