Why Freeze?
There are generally two main reasons to egg freeze, medical or “elective’’ (personal) circumstances. Medical reasons might include impaired ovarian function or imminent chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment for cancer which can affect future fertility. Protecting your fertility before cancer treatment is an important decision. Having a fertility specialist that is skilled and trusted is crucial when considering the right treatment for you. Elective or personal factors such as age and associated declining fertility are another reason women may opt to freeze eggs. Dr Rashi is able to guide you if this is the right choice for your circumstance.
Fertility Preservation
Egg Freeze
Egg freezing or oocyte vitrfication is a way for women facing medical treatment that will compromise their future fertility to freeze eggs for future use. Dr Rashi has extensive training in fertility preservation working at the Fertility preservation unit at the Royal Womens Hospital, and can facilitate urgent egg freeze where needed prior to commencement of chemotherapy or radiation.
Embryo Freeze
It is possible to cryopreserve or ‘freeze’ embryos for later use. This is usually done when there are surplus embryos in an IVF cycle. The use of embryos is simple and involves less medications than a fresh cycle. At Genea around 59% of patients who achieved a live birth from a fresh embryo transfer and returned for a frozen transfer have had a second child with just one stimulated IVF cycle.
Sperm Freeze
There are many reasons to freeze and store sperm for future use such as cancer treatment, radiation therapy or declining sperm counts. Dr Rashi can assess the need and facilitate sperm freeze and storage for patients through her fertility clinic at Genea. There are various ways this can be used in the future to facilitate conception and pregnancy such as insemination or IVF.
Want to know more about protecting and preserving your fertility? Here's a little Q & A to help you stay informed.
As women get older, they may encounter difficulty getting pregnant (conceiving) with a healthy baby. Women are born with about 1-2 million eggs. Most of the eggs die off naturally (just like the way we lose skin and hair cells every day). As she gets older, especially as women enter their mid- to late-30s and 40s, the eggs disappear more quickly. Also, the eggs that remain might be less able to lead to a healthy pregnancy because of the normal age effects on egg quality.
Biologically, it is easier to get pregnant before age 30. However, due to professional, social, or health reasons, a woman might not be ready to get pregnant at that time and she might want to defer having a child until the time is right for her. Understanding the normal age effect on future fertility, these women may seek out treatments to freeze eggs to be saved for potential use in the future.
The actual treatment process is similar to the first part of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process used to treat some patients with infertility. Briefly, a woman would have 10-12 days of daily self administered injections to cause a group of her eggs to mature and develop. During this time, blood levels and ultrasounds will be done to track her response to the medicines. To remove the matured eggs, the woman would then undergo a brief (15- 30 minute, typically) procedure usually under light anesthesia to harvest the eggs. Once removed and inspected by a trained scientist--an embryologist--- the usable eggs can be snap frozen indefinitely.
No. Even in younger women (age<38) the chance a frozen egg will yield a baby is 2-8%. As women get older, egg quality drops and the chance per frozen egg also drops.
Every woman is different regarding the effects of age on her fertility, keep in mind; some women into their early 40s do not suffer infertility. However, most experts agree that elective egg freezing is most successful for women younger than 38 years of age.
Understanding that cryopreserved eggs are not a guarantee of a future baby, a woman should start trying to conceive as soon as she feels “ready” and able. One concern is that a woman might have a sense of “false security” if she freezes eggs. She might delay her attempts to conceive until she is much older (whereas she might have started trying at an earlier age, with greater success, if she hadn’t frozen eggs in the first place). In addition to thinking about success rates of using frozen eggs, women should also understand the potential medical risks and psychosocial concerns of parenting at an advanced age.
Costs can be divided into 3 broad phases:
Consultation, medication, egg retrieval
Transfer of eggs in the future to achieve a pregnancy
Storage of eggs until use (usually an annual fees).
For more information about specific costs visit Genea for details.
• A woman who is not ready to have a child can choose to freeze eggs to try to preserve her ability to have a child later.
• Freezing eggs is not a guarantee of being able to have a child later.
• Not everyone is a candidate for egg freezing.
• Egg freezing typically works best for those in their 20s to early 30s, and is not usually recommended for women over 38 years.