Why freeze eggs

Why do some women choose to freeze their eggs for the future rather than get pregnant sooner? Two new studies have looked into the reasons behind this, and although one which questioned younger women found that they'd rather focus on their careers, the other discovered that it's the lack of a partner that drives women to make the decision when they are older.

We tend to assume that women who have children later do so because they are too busy furthering their careers when they are younger, but in fact most of the women I've spoken to who were trying to get pregnant in their late thirties and early forties are adamant that this isn't the case. For them, it was a matter of waiting for the right partner - so it's not surprising that the idea of egg freezing seems attractive.

In fact, freezing eggs is not a guaranteed insurance policy. The technology is still quite new, and it's an invasive and expensive business. Women have to go through most of an IVF cycle in order to harvest a crop of eggs, and it can take two or three goes to ensure there are sufficient eggs to freeze. If women leave it until their late thirties to decide to freeze their eggs, the chances of success will have diminished as egg quality will have begun to decline.

The studies on egg freezing were presented to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Rome and you can read more about them at www.eshre.eu