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Why Choose Egg Freezing?
To Receive Cancer Treatment
If you are diagnosed with cancer, you may choose to preserve your eggs. Certain cancer medications, as well as radiation and chemotherapy can have negative effects on your fertility. You may experience temporary or permanent infertility.
If you know you want to have children in the future (or you’d like it as an option), you can freeze your healthy eggs before you begin treating the cancer. Some doctors and patients hesitate to do this because they fear it will be a long process or it will delay treatment. However, the freezing process only takes about two weeks.
Stop Your Biological Clock
If you haven’t yet found the person you want to have children with, you may want to freeze your eggs. This way, you won’t need to feel the pressure of any “ticking clock.” You’ll be able to find the right person on your own schedule, secure in the knowledge that you eggs are preserved and ready whenever you are.
Focus On Your Career
Many women feel pressured to give up their careers in order to raise a family. If you want to build your career, but you don’t want to miss out on the chance for a family, freezing your eggs can offer you a lot of freedom.
Ovarian Tissue Preservation
An ovarian tissue transplant (when ovarian tissue is implanted back into the woman’s uterus) offers a way for women to conceive naturally or with the aid of fertility treatments after cancer treatment has ended. Ovarian tissue transplants also allow patients to resume their menstrual cycles and restore the normal hormone levels associated with the menstrual cycle. The life of the transplant is often 2-3 years. If patients are unable to conceive on their own with the transplant, they may undergo fertility treatments including IVF to conceive.
AFCT is collaborating with one of the top experts in fertility preservation and ovarian tissue preservation, Dr. Sherman Silber of St Louis, MO.
Egg Freezing
If you want to have kids someday, but you’re just not ready yet, freezing your eggs is a safe and healthy way to preserve your fertility in case you choose to have children in the future. The best time to freeze your eggs is considered to be in your early to mid-30s, and preferably before 38 years of age. Younger eggs have better chances of developing into a healthy baby.
In 2012, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) declared that the procedure was no longer experimental, implying that eggs can be frozen and stored safely and effectively using a new method of verification (an ultra-rapid freezing process). It is important to know that freezing eggs does not guarantee a baby regardless of the woman’s age at the time of the procedure. However, it offers a reliable “insurance plan.” For more information, please visit www.ASRM.org
If you already have a partner, or would like to use a sperm donor, embryo freezing may be a good option for you. Pregnancy rates from embryo freezing can be even higher than those from egg freezing, further ensuring that you will be able to have a family when the time is right for you. If you are not comfortable with freezing and storing embryos for religious or moral reasons, then freezing your eggs is a better choice for you.
Egg Freezing Benefits
- Egg freezing has no detrimental impact on your ovaries as you typically ovulate only about 300 of the 300, 000 eggs found in puberty. During the egg freezing process we would like to preserver about 10 or more oocytes
- If a women undergoes egg freezing at age 30 and plans to conceive at age 35, Her chances of conception are substantially higher and the risk of Down syndrome and other genetic disorders are substantially lower.
- This process is ideal for women who would like to postpone family planning to as many years as they choose while they are working on a career or finding the right partner.
- Egg freezing can be done in as little as two weeks and now commonly utilized in patients who are diagnosed with cancer to preserve their fertility
- Egg freezing is beneficial in women who are diagnosed with endometriosis who may require ovarian surgery or have other autoimmune disease which has the potential to reduce ovarian reserve and pregnancy rates.
- Egg freezing is a safe process and numerous studies demonstrate that infants born have no increase in any abnormalities compared to normal conception
- Egg freezing utilizes the process of vitrification which dehydrates the egg with antifreeze like substance and rapid freezing the egg can be preserved for several years.
- Egg freezing can be utilized in couples that are concerned about producing several embryos, which will not be used, can fertilize 10 of their eggs during IVF and freeze any additional eggs for the future.
Ask Christina, our
Patient Care Coordinator
