Egg freezing

I've just been reading yet another feature - this time from a local newspaper in the States - about egg freezing, apparently dubbed as the most significant development for women since the advent of the pill...

This piece was particularly sad as it quoted a woman who had spent twelve thousand dollars freezing her eggs, saying how lucky she felt that she could afford to do it. The fact that she was already in her early forties didn't seem to have been addressed at all.

Egg freezing is a fantastic step forward and will undoubtedly benefit many women, but it is vital that people understand that it cannot offer any guarantees, and that their chances of success are hugely diminished if they freeze their eggs when they are older. I fear that many women are spending large sums imagining that they are somehow insuring themselves against a childless future, when in fact the realistic chances of having a baby using their frozen eggs may be extremely low.

A frozen guarantee

I've just been reading about an American TV presenter in her mid-thirties who has decided that she isn't ready to have children for another couple of years, and so is going to freeze her eggs as an insurance policy. If only it were that simple...

The belief that you can put your fertility on hold by freezing eggs seems to have gained an alarming momentum. Anyone with any experience of fertility treatment could tell you how uncertain it is and that there are never any guarantees - but this woman has somehow been sold the idea that freezing eggs will ensure she has no fertility problems in the future. I'm never entirely sure where this myth originates as most fertility doctors are very honest about the lack of guarantees when it comes to egg freezing, but perhaps the real problem is that so many women want to believe it...

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

Good news on egg freezing

Anyone who is considering delaying motherhood, whether for medical or social reasons, will be pleased to hear that new research from Canada suggests that the latest methods of egg freezing are perfectly safe, and do not have any health implications for babies.

Many women who have cancer freeze eggs or ovarian tissue, as cancer treatments often destroy fertility, and this gives some hope of having a family in the future. It is also an option for those who want to delay having children for social reasons, often because they haven't met the right person to start a family with. Up until now, egg freezing has not been particularly successful, but the latest freezing technique, known as vitrification, ensures that far more eggs survive the process.

The new research followed up the children born as a result of this technique, and found they had no greater risk of health problems than others. It was carried out by a team from McGill University in Montreal, and you can read more in The Times online at www.timesonline.co.uk