Do I need to be the same blood type as my egg donor?

Hi there,

My husband and I have been TTC for over 2 years, and finally we took a fertility test and I’ve been detected Turner syndrome (TS) and we’ve been told to use donor eggs in order to prevent its trasmission to our child(ren). It was a very difficult decision to make, but finally we could go through it and reach our final decision. We are now looking for a known egg donor here in America but I’d like to know if we should pay attention to her blood type, if it will affect our baby or something because we want to get as many info as we possibly can before going further in this process, right?

Thnx for the information

Xxx

Hello Melissa,

In principle, it is not medically necessary to match the blood type of the recipient with the donor’s. However, if you are planning to keep egg donation a secret, you should bear in mind the blood type, because that could be a way through which your child(ren) may find out.

As for how this may affect the mother and the fetus during pregnancy, differences in ABO blood types between mother and fetus do not pose a significant risk for the health of the baby or the mother’s. This is due to the fact that antibodies to the ABO blood groups are present in great amount, which means they won’t be able to cross the placenta. However, problems may develop in relation to the Rh factor (Rhesus factor). Problems arise when an Rh negative woman is pregnant with an Rh positive child. In this sense, the only way a child has a negative (-) blood type is that both parents are negative (-).

If you are not planning to reveal your children they were conceived via egg donation, it would be interesting to select a donor and intended father blood type combination that could match or at least create similar blood types to those that the intended parents could have created naturally.

Hope this helps