The Japanese city of Urayasu has announced that it will pay much of the cost of freezing the eggs of the women who live there , as part of a program aimed at increasing the low birth rate in the country. And it is that egg freezing is a measure increasingly used to improve the chances of women to conceive at older ages. Let’s know five key facts about egg freezing:
Freezing eggs to delay conception is not recommended
Despite growing interest in egg freezing, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine explained that there is not enough data to recommend that women freeze their eggs for the sole purpose of delaying childbearing as “studies are lacking to support safety , efficacy, ethics, emotional risks and profitability of egg freezing for this purpose ”. It is advisable for other groups of women, for example, women with cancer who may lose their fertility during chemotherapy treatment.
Of the women who freeze their eggs, very few use them
According to fertility centers, the percentage of women who freeze their eggs and then return to use them is relatively low. In fact, in a study by a team of researchers at a fertility clinic in Santa Monica, California (USA) found that from 2007 to 2012, 232 women frozen their eggs to delay childbearing, but 95% of them they had not yet made use of them in 2015. Most believed that they believed they were capable of having children by other means or that they were not yet ready to be mothers.
Freezing eggs does not guarantee pregnancy
Many women who freeze their eggs believe that the procedure is like an “insurance policy” in case they are unable to become pregnant, but the truth is that freezing eggs does not guarantee a successful pregnancy. Pregnancy rates in Europe range from 36 to 61% success rate. And is that the chances of pregnancy depend on many factors: the number of eggs that are frozen and at what age the eggs are frozen are two of the most relevant.
Egg freezing works best at an early age
In line with the above, the chances of pregnancy are higher if a woman uses frozen eggs between the ages of 20 and 30 rather than later, as confirmed by the fertility expert from the University of Rochester Medical Center (USA) Wendy Vitek. Various studies have shown that pregnancy rates for women who freeze their eggs after age 38 are considerably lower than those who do so at younger ages, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Babies born through this method are still not very common
The exact number of how many babies have been born from egg freezing is unknown, but by some estimates it is a few thousand worldwide. As a curiosity, the procedure was used for the first time in 1986.
