Embryo Adoption

Topics on this page: Funding | Grants

The Office of Population Affairs (OPA) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH) is responsible for administering the frozen embryo adoption public awareness campaign. The campaign supports grants, cooperative agreements and/or contracts which aim to increase public awareness of embryo donation/adoption. The program may also fund projects that provide services to make this family building option more attainable for infertile couples.

In the course of treatments for infertility, couples usually produce more embryos than they can use. These supernumerary embryos are generally frozen while the couple who created them decides about their ultimate disposition. This freezing process is known as cryo-preservation. The latest data suggest that there are more than 620,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States. However, it is likely that the vast majority of these cryo-preserved embryos are still being considered for use in the family-building efforts of the couples who created them. Moreover, some embryos are earmarked by the creating couples for use in research. Nevertheless, it is thought that there may be as many as 60,000 frozen embryos which could potentially be made available for embryo adoption (that is, the transfer of the embryo to the uterus of a woman who intends to bear a child and to be that child's parent). The ultimate purpose of the program is to promote the use of embryo/donation as a family-building option.