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How long after death are human eggs viable?

There is a wiki page about posthumous sperm extraction, but I can't find any info about female gametes (eggs). Are they rendered inviable as soon as the women dies, or could they feasibly be extracted, inseminated via IVF and implanted into a surrogate to eventually produce a live birth? If so, what is the time frame for doing so? Only knowledgeable scientific answers please.

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    I really dont know how long an egg extracted from a dead human female can be viable but I know that it had been tried in past & result was positive. Got no information about the time after which eggs from an Israeli girl were extracted. According to me an egg from a dead female should be less viable than sperms from a dead male. Sperms get their nutrition & oxygen supply through sertoli cells & not directly from blood as blood testes barrier is present in case of male. But in female there's no Blood Ovarian Barrier or something like that & the maturing ovum & also other oocytes get their nutrition directly from blood from arteries supplying ovary i.e. Ovarian artery & uterine artery. So shortly after a female dies, the blood becomes stagnant & the ovarian cells die due to hypoxia i.e. stagnant hypoxia. This is about when a female dies before ovulating. But if a female dies right after ovulation then the ovum can get its nutrition from secretion of uterine tubes as it happens in case of a living female until the ovum gets fertilized. If this happens, doctors will have sufficient time to remove the ovum & utilize it as an ovum remains viable with less genetic loss upto 48hours after ovulation. I think its quite difficult to extract ovum directly from the ovary of a dead female as we have to find which of the primary follicles gonna be secondary after secreting maximum amount of estrogen in its antrum & then ovulate. Then we have to culture it & utilize for fertilization. That actually decreases the chance of success of the procedure. Anyway, this was all my thoughts. I didn't find anything about it either. But I did find a news about a trial of this procedure. I'm gonna post the link below.

    Thanks for asking this question.

  • Zelda
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    Unless at the time of ovulation and being stimulated to produce more. The egg never makes it to the follicle to mature and be harvested. Sperm can live in the testes for 5 days after the person has passed away.

    So if you were just about to ovulate they could pull one egg out if they suction both ovaries, but it would have to be at the time of death before necropsy has set in.

  • 8 years ago

    Well an egg survives 24/48 hours after ovulation so I'm assuming the time frame would be similar after the body shuts down but I'm guessing conditions such as temperature would need to be kept similar...

    This is just a guess though ;)

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