Egg freezing gives an opportunity for women to preserve their reproductive ability without worrying biological clock.
But the following are some important information require to collect before approaching an egg freezing agency:
What is egg freezing?
Clinically egg freezing is also termed as Oocyte cryopreservation. It involves hormonal stimulation for multiple eggs production in the ovaries.
The produced eggs are retrieved from ovaries and freeze them in subzero temperatures for future use.
The whole procedure is conducted under medical supervision in a specialized laboratory.
Why women opt egg freezing options?
The reproductive ability of women diminishes with increasing of age.
Women need time to settle their carrier, search suitable partner and get stability in their life, which may not possible within a very restricted period of time.
Some medical conditions like ovarian cancer, radiation therapy or chemotherapy can induce premature menopause and hamper female’s fertility.
Egg freezing offers a woman to face these challenges by extending their fertility ability and they get time for motherhood.
How the egg freezing procedure is conducted? What risk associated with egg freezing?
Egg freezing procedure is conducted under anesthesia.
The endocrinal stimulation of ovaries will be conducted by vaginal needle puncturing.
An expert medical profession in this field with proper medical care is highly required, as negligence can increase the risk of infection.
How frequent fertility clinic visit requires for the process?
A cycle of hormonal injection requires to inject for ovarian stimulation and multiple eggs productions.
At this stage, women require to visit the fertility clinic almost 5 times in 10 days.
During this stage, vaginal ultrasound requires to perform frequently for regular monitoring of the ovaries.
Usually, eggs can be retrieved after 1 or 2 weeks of hormonal treatments.
What is the process and duration of egg retrieval?
Mild anaesthetic medication or sedative drug is administered before the egg retrieval process.
The duration of the process almost 10 minutes.
A needle guided by ultrasound is inserted through the vagina and reaches to the ovarian follicle, which contains the eggs.
An attached suction device at the terminal tip of needle gently aspirates out the eggs from the follicles.
This process is quite similar to the blood withdrawal process.
A side effect of the shots?
The major side effect related to hormonal injection is ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome.
In this condition, inflammation in the ovaries causes’ abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting.
It is not necessary to happen in every case, but no guaranteed avoidance.
The risk of blood clots and kidney failure are higher in severe ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, which can provide a fatal outcome.
But this happens very rarely.
Immediate medical attention can manage these side effects.
There is a chance of alteration of mood due to an emotional response.
The feeling of bloated may common as the ovaries inflated to make space to hold the expanded follicles, where egg maturation process is completed.
Some women reported they feel great, where some feel tiredness.
What is the success rate of freezing egg to produce a baby in the future?
The success of egg freezing to childbirth depends upon some factors.
These include the women’s age at which she opts for egg freezing and the partner’s sperm quality.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a single frozen egg has a chance to obtain a live birth is almost 2% to 12%.
Therefore, experts always advice a more than one dozen eggs (approx. 20 eggs) to freeze to increase the success rate.
Younger aged women have healthier eggs and increase the potentiality of childbirth.
Women with increasing of age have declined egg health.
That may not have the potentiality to produce a healthy child.
It is advisable to opt egg freezing within the 30’s.
A research study revealed that an egg freezing conducted on a woman with 30 years age had a 9 % to 24% scope to get a live childbirth from her 2 to 6 thawed eggs
Whereas an egg freezing conducted on a woman with 40 years of age had only 5 % to 13% scope to get a live childbirth.
However, the method of freezing is also a considerable factor to obtain maximum success rate.
What is the expense involved in egg freezing?
Egg freezing is an expensive procedure.
The estimated cost of egg retrieval procedure along with required medicine is almost US$13000 to US$15,000.
In addition to this, annual cold storage fees vary from US$500 to US$1,000.
IVF (In-Vitro fertilization) process usually pertaining for fertilizing the thawed egg.
Each round of IVF cost is almost US$3,500 to US$5,000.
The above-mentioned egg freezing expense is not fixed, it may vary from agency to agency, country to country.
Some low-cost egg freezing agency may also accessible in the market.
Ravi Sharma is a self-motivated, successful entrepreneur and has a solid experience in the fertility segment. and he is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). He is a pharmacy graduate with post-graduation in business administration and has 14 years of rich experience in the field of infertility segment. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate (B. Pharm) and M.B.A (marketing).
His most recent success includes the successful launch of the medical tourism company, ARTbaby, which offers treatment options for infertility, egg donation, and surrogacy. He likes spending time with his family and writing about various aspects of IVF surrogacy and donating eggs.