Wednesday 19th May 2021 – 8pm (GMT)
In this webinar, I was joined by Nicky Hudson, a medical sociologist focusing on people’s experiences of reproductive health. Her current work is dedicated to furthering knowledge about the social, political and economic aspects of reproductive health and especially, how individual experiences are shaped by this wider context – in this case that of those who donate their eggs.
In this session, Nicky talked about research she is currently undertaking which explores the experiences of egg donors within Europe. She presented some preliminary findings from the ‘EDNA’ study which aimed to understand the experiences of women donating eggs in the UK, Spain and Belgium. She showed how egg donation is differently organised in these countries and how this impacts on the experiences and motivations of women who donate under different sets of regulations. She talked about some of the common experiences women described when they donated their eggs.
As a recipient of donated eggs I’ve often wondered about our egg donor, their motivations and how this may have been influenced by the regulations held in that country. Whilst this session can’t answer those questions specifically for me, what it can do is provide a better understanding of this important, but sometimes overlooked, perspective within donor conception.
Speaker Bio
Nicky Hudson
Nicky is a medical sociologist. Her work is about people’s experiences of their reproductive health and the medical and health care systems that they encounter. She has been researching reproduction for 20 years, and leads the Centre for Reproduction Research at De Montfort University in Leicester.