Freezing Eggs For Future Pregnancy

Human oocyte cryopreservation (also known as egg freezing) is a procedure to preserve a women's eggs. It facilitates pregnancy for those who want to give birth in the future as number of eggs in ovary depletes with advancing age, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Who should consider it?
Women who should consider this fertility option are:
• Women diagnosed with cancer.
• Women who need or want to delay pregnancy in order to pursue educational career or other personal goals
• Women with reservations against storing of frozen embryos for religious and/or moral reasons.

When should women freeze their eggs?
The past few years have seen an unprecedented surge in the number of women opting for egg freezing across the world. According to a study, many women decide to freeze eggs for non-medical reasons. Over 20 per cent of the women in this research had health issues such as endometriosis, PCOS, blocked fallopian tubes, and the perception of being at risk for premature menopause or serious illness effecting their decision.

How are the eggs frozen?
This procedure involves 3 stages — retrieving the eggs, freezing them and later using them when required. First stage is similar to IVF cycle. Initially, the patient is injected with hormones daily on the fertility specialist's instruction. During this stage, the patient needs to visit the fertility clinic regularly for about two weeks for monitoring and to determine when the eggs are ready for retrieval. Once the eggs are retrieved and checked in the embryology lab, the best quality ones are selected and frozen in cryopreservation tanks. Whenever the owner wishes to use the frozen eggs, they have to go for IVF treatment that involves thawing of the eggs, fertilizing them with partners' sperm using ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) and growing the embryos for up to 5 days. The best 1-3 embryos are chosen for transfer back into the uterus.

How long can the eggs remain frozen?
Usually, the eggs are frozen at a temperature of 196 degrees Celsius. It is proven that sperms are normally stored for a maximum of 10 years in the sperm bank and eggs too can be stored for a similar period without any decrease in quality.

How many eggs should a woman need to store to achieve pregnancy?
The thaw and fertilization rates of eggs are 75 per cent in women up to the age of 38 years. Thus, if 10 eggs are frozen, 7 are expected to survive, out of which 5 to 6 are expected to fertilise and become the embryo. Usually, 1 to 3 embryos are transferred into women and it takes 10 eggs to be stored for each pregnancy attempt. In case of young women facing early ovarian ageing, they need multiple stimulation cycles and retrieval to be able to store desired numbers for an effective success rates.

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