The process of retrieving eggs is identical to the first phase of in vitro fertilization, or IVF. How invasive is the procedure, and how risky? Women are doing it for work now, which is very different from the first wave of freezers.” “Now, and really starting with, we’re seeing women freeze their eggs younger and younger, and the public narrative around it is changing. “The average age at which a woman freezes her eggs is now 36,” she said, down from 38. Women are increasingly deferring childbearing in order to focus on demanding careers, and the age has dropped. Indeed, among the first wave of egg freezers - those who froze their eggs from 2005 to 2011 - more than 80 percent had no partner, said Sarah Elizabeth Richards, author of the book, “Motherhood Rescheduled: The New Frontier of Egg Freezing.”īut the “why” is shifting, Richards said. “The second reason is women have something they need to get done before children, whether that’s their career or school.”
“The primary reason given by women we surveyed is that they are not in a relationship conducive to childbearing,” Noyes said. She is the senior author of a New York University study released in May 2013. About three-quarters of the women who freeze their eggs do so because they don’t have a partner, Noyes said. Nicole Noyes, director of fertility preservation at New York University School of Medicine, said she’s overseen more than 200 cycles for medical reasons, mostly cancer, with women evenly divided between lymphoma, breast and gynecologic cancers.īut it’s not all medical. Cancer treatment, for example, can be toxic to the ovaries and cause premature menopause. Some women choose to freeze their eggs for medical reasons. The process of egg-freezing, or in medical speak, oöcyte cryopreservation, involves stimulating the ovaries with hormones to produce multiple eggs, retrieving the eggs from the ovaries and taking them to the lab, where they’re cooled to subzero temperatures to be thawed at a later date. The nation turned its attention to the issue in October when Facebook and Apple announced that they would cover up to $20,000 in costs for the procedure.īut just how successful is it? How invasive? How expensive? When it comes to the details, is this something women should seriously consider? And if so, who? And for many women looking to extend their childbearing years, it has has become an increasingly attractive option. Egg freezing is seen by some as a way to stop the biological clock, expand reproductive options and preserve the younger, possibly healthier eggs. As women age, the likelihood of chromosomal abnormalities climbs, and with it, the risk of miscarriage, birth defects or disorders that makes conceiving more difficult.