Egg Freezing Advantages And Disadvantages

Egg freezing is a technique in which eggs are retrieved from the ovaries and frozen for future use. Egg freezing through the vitrification method has higher success rates than cryopreservation. Social egg freezing allows women to preserve their fertility and has changed the course of reproductive health. 

Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have and by the time they go through menopause, there are almost no more eggs left. Below you can see fertility rates each month based on age:

• 20s, peak fertility, 25% each month
• 30s, pregnancy declines, 15% each month
• 40s, entering menopause, 5% each month

What are the advantages of egg freezing?

• Eggs stay the age at which they were frozen. If you freeze your eggs at a younger age, a larger portion of your eggs will be normal and free of chromosomal abnormalities when you’re ready to build your family.
• Egg freezing allows you to have it all. You can pursue your career, relationship goals and come back to motherhood when you’re ready.
• Freezing eggs allows you to date without feeling the pressure of the biological clock.
• If you have a health condition that threatens the viability of your eggs (like endometriosis, cancer, etc. ), egg freezing can protect your eggs and give you the gift of becoming a parent even if you can’t carry your baby yourself (surrogate mother).
• Egg freezing results in babies if you choose the right clinic and the right doctor. Freezing and thawing eggs (single cells) is more complicated since they are more fragile than embryos (hundreds of cells). In this case, the larger clinics usually are more experienced and have better outcomes. Iranian Surgery is proud to have had many successful cases in egg freezing and IVF.

What are the disadvantages of egg freezing?

After the egg retrieval, some women may experience:

• Bloating
• Headache
• Weight gain
• Mood swings
• Infection
• Bleeding or spotting
• And in rare cases, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS)

There are also some moral concerns pertaining to freezing eggs. 

• Treating human body products like commodities.
• If a woman decides to get pregnant after menopause, due to human life span she will most probably only be able to mother the child until his/her teenage years.

What are the medical risks of social egg freezing for IVF?

Women who attempt to get pregnant using their frozen then thawed eggs are subject to the risks of IVF (in-vitro fertilization). These include:

• Multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets, or more)
• High blood pressure related to pregnancy
• Premature delivery
• Operative delivery
• Infants with low birth weight

Read more about : How Long Do Frozen Eggs Last Fertility?

Read more about : Egg Freezing Risks