What a donor egg pregnancy does to your risk of preeclampsia
Roughly one in nine as a single pregnancy, and more than one in four with twins.
This is the single most important thing that is left out of donor egg conversations. It has good absolute numbers, so there is no excuse for leaving it out.
Pooled across 27 studies covering 7,089 donor egg pregnancies, 1,139,540 naturally conceived pregnancies and 72,742 IVF pregnancies with the woman's own eggs:
| Preeclampsia | Donor eggs | Natural conception | IVF with own eggs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single pregnancies | 10.7% | 2.0% | 4.1% |
| Multiple pregnancies | 27.8% | 7.5% | 9.7% |
The authors summarised it as: Nearly one in six women will suffer PE after OD.
That fraction, about 17%, averages single and twin pregnancies together, which is why it sits between the two figures in the table.
The adjusted odds ratio against natural conception was 3.24, and against IVF with your own eggs it was 2.67. Compared with natural conception the increase was larger for severe preeclampsia than for preeclampsia overall. Compared with IVF using your own eggs, the two were the same.
Two other pooled analyses agree on the direction. One found the excess in preterm birth and low birth weight after donor egg conception disappeared after adjusting for preeclampsia, which suggests the placental and blood pressure pathway is doing the work rather than donor conception harming babies directly.
should be the option of choice in oocyte-donation cycles.
Look at the second row of the table. Carrying twins from donor eggs takes the preeclampsia risk to more than one in four.
Note the middle figure. Most women reading this are choosing donor eggs instead of IVF with their own eggs, not instead of conceiving naturally, so 4% is the comparison that actually applies to them. If you have only been told the success rate, ask for the rest.