Can Egg Donors Have Sex?
Guidelines on Sex and Intimacy During the Egg Donation Process
Many of our candidates want to know: Can egg donors have sex? This is a great question, and an important one. During the donation process, egg donors agree to adopt certain lifestyle changes, including some that relate to sex. Here’s everything you need to know about having sex as an egg donor.
How the Egg Donation Process Affects Your Body
During egg donation, you’ll take hormonal medications that increase your egg production before the egg retrieval. These medications have physical effects on your body that impact sexual intercourse. The main two effects are:
You become extra fertile
Your ovaries become enlarged
Being extra fertile means it’s much easier for you to become pregnant. Enlarged ovaries means they grow much bigger than normal, which can lead to physical injury during sex. Both of these factors mean that having sexual intercourse during the egg donation procedure is very risky.
What Are the Risks of Having Sex as an Egg Donor?
There are three main risks to having sexual intercourse during your donation cycle:
Pregnancy
As we mentioned, the medications during the egg donation process make it much easier to get pregnant. Not only that, they also make it more likely to get pregnant with twins or triplets. You cannot use hormonal birth control (ex. the Pill) during an egg donation cycle, and the chance of pregnancy is increased for non-hormonal methods, like condoms. For instance, if a condom breaks or is used incorrectly, you have a much higher chance of getting pregnant.
In addition to the extra considerations of an unplanned pregnancy, getting pregnant also automatically ends your donation cycle, without compensation.
Ovarian Torsion
As your ovaries grow bigger from the medications, they become more sensitive to activities that involve bouncing or jumping. This can cause the ovary to get twisted around in a serious medical condition called ovarian torsion. Running, mountain biking, and sex can all cause ovarian torsion.
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
Having sex increases your chance of contracting an STI or other infectious disease. In addition to affecting your health, testing positive for an infectious disease can interrupt or cancel the egg donation process.
While the increased risk of pregnancy only applies to sexual intercourse with partners with sperm, ovarian torsion and STIs can be a risk for any sexual activity, regardless of gender or sexuality. There may be safer intimacy options available to you; ask your fertility doctor about safe alternatives to intercourse during your donation cycle.
So, Can Egg Donors Have Sex?
No. The risk of pregnancy and physical injury is too high. Medical professionals, including SIMPLIFY and our partner clinic PNWF, require that egg donors abstain from sexual intercourse during their donation cycle. Typically, donors are prescribed an oral contraceptive pill (OCP) to start their donor cycle. Donors must stop having sex from the time they start their OCP until their first period after the retrieval.
When Can I Have Sex After Being an Egg Donor?
Even after your egg retrieval, you are still extremely fertile until your next period. During this time, we recommend that you continue to abstain or use condoms with partners with sperm to avoid accidental pregnancy.
To prevent infection, you should also avoid any kind of intercourse or inserting anything into the vagina for one week after the egg retrieval. The swelling in your ovaries should start to decrease in the days after the retrieval. We recommend taking it easy for a day or two to recover; after that, the risk of ovarian torsion should be low.
Do You Have More Questions About Egg Donation and Sex? We Can Help.
Donating eggs does mean temporarily abstaining from intercourse. To most donors, though, the opportunity to help a family is more than worth the temporary lifestyle changes. If you are interested in becoming a donor, or have more questions about the process, reach out to us today.