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The benefits of being an egg donor

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Women who donate their eggs to needy couples are making miracles. They are giving a part of themselves to others, and the joy that it provides can never be replaced. This generosity has reciprocal benefits that women should consider when they make the decision to donate eggs or not.

Egg Recipient Benefits


The benefits of being an egg recipient are clear: you get to have a healthy child to love and raise, forever. However, there are other things receiving couples get, too:

They get to have a child with unexpected, special traits.

Their child will be a symbol of endurance and of how much they wanted a child. There's no such thing as a "whoops!" donor egg baby.

The child gets to grow up knowing that an entire team worked together to make his or her life possible.

Helping couples desperate to be parents

All around the world there are couples desperate to be parents. Sadly, 15% of couples have fertility issues that cannot be easily rectified. It can be costly for couples hoping to become families to venture into fertility options, but it's often their only choice.

Egg donors are doing their part for would-be parents in need by donating a part of themselves. There could be no greater act than giving your DNA to someone that is a parent without a child. It is an incredibly trusting and selfless thing to do. The women who donate eggs will be remembered forever by the couple and their child for the generosity.

Pride and confidence after altruism

Studies have found that women who donate eggs feel a long-lasting sense of pride. They enjoy helping a couple in need of assistance, and being extra useful in the world in general. These women benefit from heightened self-confidence and pride for many years in most cases.

Cold hard cash counts

While we would like to believe that every woman donating eggs is doing it specifically to help people in need, the truth is that most of these women need money as well. Their act is still incredibly generous, and it benefits a couple forever, but it also benefits the egg donor immediately with some agencies paying R6000 and others as much as R8000 per donation.*

Your DNA lives on

Without ever having a child yourself, your DNA would continue to live in the world if you donated eggs. Someone somewhere would be raising your child, and spreading your family genes to another generation.

Sometimes the child grows up and finds the egg donor parent, making a connection and bond that lasts forever. Other times the couple or donor want the connection to stay anonymous, and the child gets to live life knowing that he or she has three parents in a way. Families use egg donor agencies to make these decisions together.

For donors it can be neat to know that any child at the supermarket might be related. Every time a familiar looking child smiles at the past donor, it could be the result of that donation. This is a neat feeling that increases the pride a donor feels.

*Updated amount. Correction made by another donor.

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