Recently, we made an innovative change at Fertility Match, and we are beyond excited to share it! In the past few years, a new gold standard in fertility treatment has emerged: Genetic Testing (often referred to as expanded genetic carrier screening). If you require egg donor matching to build your family, then why would you not use a donor that has no recessive genes in common with the sperm provider? Especially since confirming a genetic match upfront will ensure the embryos created, your future children, will not carry commonly inherited genetic diseases. It also ensures you will not be wasting time and money medically screening a donor prior to genetic screening, or even worse, unknowingly using a donor that you really should not be using due to a genetic issue.
Fertility Match is very proud to be Canada’s only agency that details genetic screening results on all egg donor profiles in our database. This change allows intended parent clients in our program to know at the time of selection that the egg and sperm provider are not carriers of the same genetic disease or syndrome.
Genetic Screening: Then and Now
In the past, genetic screening of patients has been part of the workup prior to fertility treatments if deemed necessary. For example, tests for specific genetic disorders were offered to couples trying to conceive if they were identified at risk because they belonged to an ethnic group with a higher likelihood of certain genetic diseases, such as Ashkenazi Jewish populations (Tay-Sachs disease and others), African American populations (sickle cell disease), and Mediterranean and Southeast Asian populations (thalassemia).
However, with the commercialization of expanded genetic carrier screening in recent years, we can now ensure optimal health of the children born through the egg donation program at Fertility Match.
How We Get Our Genes
People inherit their chromosomes, which contain their genes, from the persons who provided the egg and the sperm during conception. Chromosomes come in pairs and humans have 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. Children randomly get one of each pair of chromosomes from the egg and one of each pair from the sperm provider. The chromosomes that form the 23rd pair are called the sex chromosomes, and they determine if a person is born male or female. A female has two X chromosomes, and a male has one X and one Y chromosome. Each daughter gets an X from the egg provider and an X from the sperm provider. Each son gets an X from the egg and a Y from the sperm provider.
Genetic Disorders
Genetic disorders can happen for many reasons. They are often explained in terms of the chromosome that contains the gene that is changed in people who have the disorder. If the gene is on one of the first 22 pairs of chromosomes, called the autosomes, the genetic disorder is called an autosomal condition. If the gene is on the X chromosome, the disorder is called X-linked.
Genetic disorders are also grouped by how they run in families. Disorders can be dominant or recessive, depending on how they cause conditions and how they are inherited.
Dominant Inheritance
Dominant diseases can be caused by only one copy of a gene having a DNA mutation. If one egg or sperm provider carries the dominant gene, each child has a 50% chance of inheriting the mutated gene.
Recessive Inheritance
For recessive diseases, both copies of a gene must have a DNA mutation in order for a child to develop the disease. If both the egg and sperm providers each carry one copy of the mutated gene, each child has a 25% chance of having the disease, even though neither provider has it themselves. In such cases, each egg and sperm provider are called a carrier of the disease. They can pass the disease on to the child but do not have the disease themselves.
Egg and Sperm Donors in Canada
In Health Canada’s Technical Requirements for Ova and Sperm Donors, Section 2.1.1, genetic disease screening is addressed through a structured questionnaire that assesses the risk of genetic disease transmission by asking questions about the donor’s family history.
For people building their families through third party reproduction, actual genetic testing of egg and sperm donors has become best practice as part of the donor screening process, but is not yet required by Health Canada. Therefore, not all fertility clinics Canada educate about or offer this new, life-changing technology.
Genetic testing, rather than simply screening the donor with a questionnaire, provides intended parents with the comfort of knowing that the match between the sperm provider and egg donor will result in the creation of embryos where the risk of passing on a genetic disease or disorder is greatly reduced, if not eliminated.
If you are considering become an egg donor or want to understand what genetic screening involves, reviewing our egg donor qualifications and egg donor requirements pages is a great place to start.
Fertility Match Canada: Our Elite Assurance Program
Since expanded carrier screening can identify flaws in genes for more than 300 genetic disorders, some of which are rare and have few treatments, we truly believe in this new addition to our program. As former infertility patients and experts in egg donation Ontario and across Canada, we would want to know this vital genetic information prior to undergoing treatment. Therefore, it is simply the right thing to do for our clients.
With the introduction of our Elite Assurance program, intended parents can move forward with their donor of choice knowing the match is genetically safe and the risk of passing on a genetic disease or disorder is greatly reduced. You can browse our egg donor database to view donor profiles that already include expanded carrier screening results, making selecting an egg donor a more informed and confident process than ever before. For those coming from outside the country, our surrogacy agencies Canada page outlines how we support international clients through every step of the journey.
If you want to learn more or get started, contact Fertility Match today. We would love to connect with you and help you take the next step toward building your family.
