Donated embryos for reproduction helps infertile families have a baby and experience pregnancy,childbirth

Knoxville, TN -- (SBWire) -- 09/09/2013 --The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) announced today it has received a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to expand public awareness and increase educational opportunities for industry professionals regarding embryo donation and adoption. The NEDC, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect the lives and dignity of human embryos by promoting, facilitating and educating about embryo donation and adoption.

With the new grant, the NEDC will focus its outreach on a national scale by using an integrated marketing communications strategy consisting of conventional and web-based digital media to deliver the embryo donation/adoption message and through the use of in-person site visits and interactive tele-visits to adoption agencies, fertility clinics and other related professions, and exhibiting and presenting at industry conferences. NEDC will update its previously grant funded online learning program, the National Embryo Donation Academy (NEDA), and offer CE credits, at no charge. The campaign intends to build national public awareness of embryo donation and adoption through the use of online and off-line communication including social media vehicles, print and digital advertising, blogging, email marketing and video posting.

Jeffrey Keenan, MD, medical director for the National Embryo Donation Center, stated, “We are pleased with the exciting work previous grants have allowed us to accomplish in increasing awareness about the existence of frozen embryos available for donation and adoption, and we look forward to working with adoption professionals to inform and educate them on this family building option for their clients.”

Embryo donation/adoption has been practiced for many years within the nation’s fertility clinics, but it is still a relatively underutilized option for family building. Couples with remaining frozen embryos from their in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles decide to donate them to other infertile families where they are placed in the woman’s uterus with hopes of achieving pregnancy. There are currently over 625,000 frozen human embryos in the U.S. with up to 19,000 available for reproductive donation. Other dispositions options are: thaw and dispose, keep frozen indefinitely or donate to research. It should be noted that to date no effective treatments or cures have been found using embryonic stem cells.

This information was prepared and is being disseminated with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under grant # EAAPA131021-01-00. The statements expressed herein are those f the National Embryo donation Center and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department.