Want to avoid donor egg? Ayurveda may help

Want to avoid donor egg? Ayurveda may help. Yes, one can avoid donor egg and conceive with own child. Depending upon case, Ayurveda can help conceive naturally with your egg. Ayurveda support fertility in holistic way-The ancient healing system Ayurveda teaches us the importance of the interrelationship between mind, body, and spirit in order to achieve optimal fertility health.

“Is the donor egg only way forward for us to have a baby? Doctors have scared hell out of us that we, my wife cannot have her own baby and we need to seek donor egg. They have promised to get us a young, fair and our caste female’s eggs. However, before we decide on that I wanted to look around and do whatever else can help us to conceive our own child. We are against donor egg, it is hard to accept that at the age of 28 with normal periods and no other health issue, my IVF failed two times. And now because of low AMH of 0.7ng/ml, doctors are suggesting donor egg. We are confused and exhausted. We do not know what else would help us. We discussed this with one of our close friends who is a fertility expert too to try Ayurvedic medicines. And here we are Infront of you- confused, scared, hopeless and exhausted. Please tell us if there is any hope in Ayurveda for us. We would like to try”. This is what Ramya (patient’s name is changed to protect the identity) told me when she saw me for the first time.

I totally agree to chose donor egg when it is needed, however, it seems to be pushing now a days. “If you do not start the process next month, you will never be able to conceive, time is running out”, Ramya was told by her fertility doctor to go for IVF. And Ramya decided to chose IVF. Almost 8-10 eggs were retrieved. However, some eggs could not fertilize and many did not mature. Finally, in the second cycle of stimulation, there were 1 grade A and 1 grade B embryos, which were transferred. Sadly, the IVF failed.

When I saw their reports, I saw morphological issues in her husband’s report. Her husband never stated that he has issues. He was advised that nothing is wrong with him and was given some multi-vitamin tablets. I asked him to check with our doctor who sees such cases. He was reluctant. He believed that everything is fine with him. The problem is infertility is believed to be a female issue and not male issue. This stigma has to be broken. Both men and women should be examined as per Ayurveda and given treatment for infertility. You can not ignore the 50% of the disease- the male factor.

The egg donation market

Egg donation is increasing rapidly among Indian women. Not only to cater local Indians needs but also worldwide. India is one the favourite spot for donor egg for NRI/s and foreigners too, because it is affordable for them. A couple (men and women) use another female’s eggs, forms an embryo using the men/s sperms and transferred to his wife’s womb. Such child is thus genetically related to the father but not to the mother who raises the child. This procedure is on boom. There are females who are poor, need money so selling their eggs. And then there are middle men who connect them to the big hospitals to sell their eggs. And finally, there are coupes who are looking for donor eggs.

Many things go around this network of so-called donor egg. I don’t know why they are called as ‘donor’- females get paid for their eggs. So, it is a kind of selling eggs. Donation would mean no money is expected and a female wants to help a couple have a child. A news paper article’s heading read like this- Young Bangalore girls donate their eggs for easy money where the writer explain the situation – where Young girls in their early 20s are choosing to become egg donor to make quick money to fulfil their financial demands. In one sitting they earn around 30,00-50,000 rupees.

There are agencies who recruit women for egg donation, there is a specific price for eggs selection, for example, a fair, young female’s egg would cost more. They can see the profile of egg donors too. There are couples who are particular about the donor’s profile- the egg donor had to be under 25, fair, beautiful and educated. But most of all, she had to belong to their caste.I hope that there are some legality and morals in pace in these cases.

But patients should be given option- option to go for traditional medicines, etc. But I guess due to the fight between modern and ancient, Ayurvedic medicines are neglected and completely ignored by the modern doctors. I do not complain. But I feel the ignorance as an Ayurvedic doctor. Anyways, that is another topic to talk about. Coming back to Ramya, she did not believe that I can actually help her. I asked her to go home and think about this. Gave her few things to read about Ayurveda.

After 1 month, she visited me on day 2 of her cycle. The husband and wife both were ready to give me 6 months -1 year for the treatment. I started my treatment. And her husband also started his medicines. She visited me once in 2 weeks. I gave her Panchakarma, medicines and counselled her about many other things. In Ayurveda, fertility is at greatest of health. Everything that you consume is transformed into your shukra, “the seed of life”. To maximise fertility health and to have good nutrition for seed of life, pay special heed on diet and mind-body health, and use herbs to be stable.

We also re-checked her hormones and did the scan when needed. We were going well except for few days when we were very close to pregnancy but it did not happen. However, we continued and after 7 months, we checked her AMH which went up to 1.85ng/ml. Meanwhile they were relocated to Pune, but she continued my medicines and came for checkup once in a month.

I reduced my medicines and gave some necessary medicines to continue and asked them to start trying for pregnancy for next 3 months. After 2 months, she texted me that she is expecting. They were surprised. She did not believe that this could happen to her. She was pregnant naturally and that to with her own child. Last week she had sent me a picture of her baby shower and she is under my care for Ayurvedic pregnancy care along with modern obstetrics care. Till today, all is going well.

Final words: There are couples who cannot afford IVF or donor egg IVF. Many couples can pay such a huge amount, they do not like the idea of donor egg. They have their own challenges. Ayurveda may help tremendously in these cases. There is a need of more awareness and acceptance for Ayurveda and many myths should be busted out.