Egg Freezing
A woman's fertility depends primarily on the quality and quantity of her eggs. A healthy woman has a finite number of eggs, reaching the highest number (6-7 million) before birth and continues to decline during her lifetime.
Egg cryopreservation allows women to freeze their eggs at a younger age. This can offer the woman a better chance of a successful pregnancy in the future than if she uses her later "fresh" eggs, which may lag behind both in quality and quantity.
The introduction of the "vitrification" process, a new quick cryopreservation technique, which minimizes the formation of crystals and thus limits the extent of the damage during the cooling/thaw process has made egg freezing a viable option for maintaining a woman's long-term fertility.
More and more evidence collected worldwide shows that frozen eggs can be as effective in achieving a pregnancy as fresh eggs and evidence they have about the risks of pregnancy, such as premature birth or congenital abnormalities, show that there is no Increasing these risks.
To maximize the effectiveness of egg freezing as "life insurance", a few cycles of stimulation may be needed. As we use fresh IVF eggs, about 15 eggs are required on average by women under 35 for each baby born, 20 eggs for women 35-40 and many more for women over 40 years old.
Therefore, we recommend that women freeze their eggs at the youngest age and target at least 20 stored eggs.
Ioannis A. Sklavounos MD MSC DFFP
Obstetrician Surgeon Gynecologist
Specialists & Retrained in Great Britain
T.Senior Clinical Fellow – Liverpool Woman’s Hospital UK
IVF
