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Flash freezing technology gives women in their 20s and early 30s the option to harvest and reserve their eggs for use at a later date. Viable? Yes, but is it a sure thing?
Within the general population and general practices, freezing eggs is relatively new and may be a smart, alternative approach for women who want to start families when they are older. For a long time, researchers and doctors have been freezing embryos, that is, fertilized eggs, as a way of increasing usually older women's chances of becoming pregnant at some point. Until recently freezing a younger woman's (unfertilized) eggs has been done only in specific cases: for example, before undergoing radiation treatments that might damage eggs.
There's no doubt that childbearing patterns have changed. Andrew Cherlin, a demographer with Johns Hopkins University, told a New York Times reporter, "College-educated women are following a different path to having children...They wait until they've graduated from college, gotten married, and started a career before having a child." And, that means more and more women are having babies after the age of 35.
Eggs Too Old
Who thinks about fertility in their 20s? Or that they may face infertility at some later date? Or that their eggs may be too old when they need them? Even if it crosses their minds, few take action. Unless a parent or sibling had problems conceiving, most men and women don't consider any of these possibilities. The media subtly reinforces the can-do of "older moms" by showcasing celebrities pregnant at 40 or 44. What we don't know is whose egg made conception possible. In many cases, the baby bumps, beaming mothers, and bouncing babies flashed before us are the result of eggs donated by younger women.
Tennis superstar Gigi Fernandez didn't think about having children until she retired from tennis at age thirty-three. Several years later, she began to try to get pregnant in earnest and used most reproductive techniques available, eventually learning that her eggs were not viable due to their age. Five years, many hormone drugs, and in vitro and intrauterine-insemination failures, and $100,000 later, Fernandez gave birth at forty-five to twins, thanks to donor eggs from a friend.
Drs. Zev Rosenwaks and Marc Goldstein of authors of A Baby at Last! point out that, "The chance of becoming pregnant with one's own eggs is very difficult after the age of 42-43. Many women in this age group must turn to egg donation. While IVF success rates go down drastically after age 37, the success of donor eggs remains high." If you plan to wait to have your child later or wait until you meet Mr. Right, although many women are not, freezing your eggs when they are healthiest could be a solution. With better ways to freeze fragile eggs available, preserving young eggs may be the next wave in giving women a choice on when-and with whom-to have a baby. But, National Public Radio reports the procedure comes with both a steep price tag and some risk.
Costs and Risks
"You can't believe how many single women I interviewed for my book and documentary, Seeking Happily Ever After says Michelle Cove, who believe that egg-freezing is fail-proof and just sitting there waiting for them when they need it. Meanwhile, chance of success is very small for women over age 35 who start to freeze their eggs at that point."
On average women start asking about freezing their eggs at age 34-1/2, but don't start freezing them until 37-1/2, the age that is the "the upper edge of the recommended range," according to Christy Jones of Extend Fertility, an organization that markets the procedure as a "lifestyle choice."
The hormones and procedure required to remove eggs and flash freeze them costs about $12,000 to $14,000. If you use your eggs, figure on spending another $30,000 more to turn your egg into an embryo. Only between 1,000-2,000 babies have been born using frozen eggs and most experts still classify the technology as experimental. Still, some ob/gyns are recommending the process to their younger patients, not to those in their late 30s or 40s who may already have less viable eggs.
Because eggs alone are more fragile than embryos, you may be hedging your bets at this point in time.Dr. Eric Widra, a member of The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, and others are calling for more and broader based research until the success rate is clearer. Widra warns, "success rates will never be 100 percent."
For now, freezing your eggs in your 20s and early 30s may be like buying an insurance policy that you never collect on. There are still lots of women who wait to conceive and have their babies in their late 30s and 40s with no technological assistance at all. But flash-freezing young eggs provides another option for women beyond those traditionally used to treat infertility and could eventually become the solution for beating the biological clock.
Would you consider flash-freezing your young eggs?
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Copyright 2011 by Susan Newman, Ph.D.
