Dr. Mark Sauer and his colleagues at the University of Southern California implanted fertilized eggs into seven 40- to 44-year-old women who had stopped ovulating. The eggs were extracted from three younger women and fertilized with sperm from the older women’s husbands. The older women were treated with gonadal hormones to make their wombs more receptive. Not only did six of the seven become pregnant, but four gave birth to healthy babies. (There was one miscarriage and one stillbirth.) The success rate matched that of younger women receiving donated eggs–and it exceeded the rates seen among older women who undergo in vitro fertilization with their own eggs.
The new findings suggest that while age may rob a woman of viable eggs, it doesn’t necessarily weaken the womb; as long as she has access to ova, a woman could conceivably go on gestating well into her 40s. There are caveats, of course. Childbearing becomes far riskier when attempted by older women (maternal death rates are four times as high in 40-year-olds as in 30-year-olds). And by creating a new class of potential egg recipients, the procedure could encourage the ethically troublesome sale of human tissue (“donors” are typically paid for each set of eggs they provide). Still, it’s hard not to marvel at the prospect of postmenopausal women having babies at will.
