Egg freezing can enable a woman to delay pregnancy until a later stage without having to worry about a potential decline in fertility.
While there is no organization that collects national data for this purpose, 54 clinics across the U.S. told TIME that “women freezing their eggs had increased year-over-year.”
According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, there was an increase in egg freezing of 2,695% from 2009 to 2018.
Benefits of Egg Freezing
Let’s take a quick overview of a few key benefits of egg freezing.
The first reason is that egg freezing helps allow you—even years down the line—to ensure that you can have biological children with your own eggs. As women are born with a finite number of eggs and they decrease over time, freezing your eggs at a young age will allow you to save a larger portion of them than if you were to wait.
Egg freezing puts the balance between career and family in your hands. You no longer have to choose. And it can take massive amounts of stress off your shoulders, where you don’t have to settle with a partner just to have a child.
When might egg freezing be a great option for you?
The following are some reasons that women freeze their eggs:
Career and Educational Plans
Women who are in taxing careers or who are actively pursuing an advanced degree may wish to freeze their eggs when they are young to make sure they have access to healthy eggs at a later time.
Personal Circumstances
It is your choice and it is up to you. You might want a child further down the line or you might not have found the right partner. You may be in a same-sex relationship and are considering having a child in the future. Or you might just want the comfort of having this option. Whatever your reason, it is up to you.
Cancer
Chemotherapy and other cancer treatments often negatively impact and, in some cases, can entirely end fertility. Also, reproductive cancers can result in the removal of a woman’s ovaries and egg freezing can sometimes reduce the impact of certain cancer treatments on fertility.
Infections, Organ Failure, and Other Health Concerns
Conditions such as endometriosis, one that occurs when uterine tissue grows outside the womb, can harm egg quality and fertility. If a woman is receiving treatment for this or other serious illnesses that may have an impact on fertility, freezing eggs can be a safeguard helping to ensure the option of a biological child in the future.
If you’re thinking about freezing your eggs, keep this in mind…
Egg freezing can be a wonderful alternative for many women looking to delay their pregnancy. It is very important to keep in mind that successful outcomes can vary from clinic to clinic.
Make sure to research and identify the clinics available to you that have good egg thaw rates and are able to provide you with statistics in regard to their success stories.
While the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies does not provide statistics on egg freezing results their data on clinics’ IVF success can be a good place to start.
