Another possibility are women with hereditary illnesses who require egg donation to have healthy children if it is not possible to select healthy embryos from their own eggs.

Using egg donation and assisted reproductive technology, some couples can conceive using their own eggs and sperm. Other couples may have to use sperm donated by another man or eggs donated by another woman. Egg donation procedure allows women, whose ovaries do not produce enough healthy eggs, to become pregnant using donated eggs. When donor eggs are used, the recipient is the birth mother, but not the genetic mother, of any resulting children.

Egg donation is also indispensable for women with diminished ovarian reserve or women who do not produce good quality eggs, often because they are approaching or have already entered menopause. Also women without ovaries, or whose ovaries do not produce any eggs. Egg donation is also used by women who want to avoid transmitting a genetic disease to their offspring.

A couple has about 65-75% chance of achieving a successful pregnancy with the help of a young and healthy egg donor.

After the age of 36 women's fertility sharply decreases, and especially the quality of eggs is diminished, making conception and successful pregnancy difficult. If in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure is used with donor eggs, the pregnancy rate generally corresponds to the donor's age group.

Thanks to egg donation procedure many women in their forties or even fifties have been able to give birth to healthy children. In fact, over 10% of all couples undergoing assisted reproductive technology procedures use donated eggs or sperm.

Women choose the egg donation procedure as an alternative to adoption. The advantages of egg donation over adoption is that it gives the couple the chance to experience a pregnancy and birth, provides the man to be the genetic father, and the woman to be the biological mother of the child. Moreover, the recipients may select a donor that closely matches their own background.