subject: Educate Yourself on Egg Freezing for Pregnancy [print this page] Educate Yourself on Egg Freezing for Pregnancy
Annually, millions of women make the choice to freeze their eggs. This move creates more options for women who want to delay starting a family. If one is considering having her eggs frozen, she should become educated on the process.
IVF procedures
IVF procedures can involve ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval and the subsequent transfer of an embryo. Ovarian stimulation involves fertility injections to enhance the egg development process in a woman. The egg retrieval process involves the removal on an egg from the woman once it has attained a certain level of maturity. The transfer process involves placing the embryo in the woman carrying the child to term.
Common reasons for cryopreservation procedure
Some women may find that chances of career advancement could be affected by having a child at a particular point in life. Others are certain that having a child later on in life is better option. Women may want to wait to achieve a certain level of financial stability before growing a family. Many desire to wait until they find a suitable partner. Women who may be undergoing some sort of medical treatment, such as chemotherapy, may find it necessary to undergo an egg freeze procedure. Cryopreservation can also be used in cases where the initial IVF treatment using fresh eggs was unsuccessful.
Cryopreservation process
The procedure is usually performed in less than an hour. When one decides to undergo an egg freeze treatment, the woman may have a procedure referred to as cryopreservation. Initial testing is performed on the woman during an office visit. Preliminary blood tests, other assessments and an ultrasound are involved. The ovaries will be stimulated through fertility injections. The woman may begin experiencing symptoms like hot flashes and sore breasts after receiving the fertility injections. Several weeks later, the woman will return for another office visit where the eggs will be removed. At this time, egg retrieval process begins. The woman is administered a mild sedative during the process. A guide is inserted and used to locate the eggs. Once the eggs are located, the fluid surrounding the eggs is drained. The egg cells are then retrieved.
About frozen eggs
The eggs are frozen in this process for a number of reasons. It gives the woman the option of using a small amount of embryos at one time during an IVF procedure. This can improve the outcome of a subsequent IVF procedure. The use of frozen eggs can also increase the woman's chances of safely carrying the children to term.
History of frozen egg success
Until this option became available to women, many women had to rush the process to increase chances of conception during the IVF treatment. Multiple embryos could be fertilized during the IVF procedure. In some cases, a number of unused embryos that had to be discarded, if not donated to others facing challenges with infertility. The cryopreservation process caused difficulty to the eggs in the past, as the eggs would be compromised to the point where they became unsuitable for later use. In recent years, however, the egg survival rate has improved through technology.
How eggs are frozen
The eggs can be frozen in a process called vitrification. This process requires that the eggs are immediately frozen once removed from the body. The eggs undergo a stabilization process with cryoprotectants before they are placed in liquid nitrogen vapor. The eggs can also be frozen in a different process that involves slow freezing. Slow freezing, commonly referred to as slow programmable freezing, is the process that is used to gradually freeze the egg in increments before placing them into liquid nitrogen. This method of freezing eggs uses no cryoprotectants. The freezing process altogether can take several months.
Benefits of cryopreservation
A woman can delay pregnancy until ready. The woman does not have to risk multiple births unnecessarily. New ethics and guidelines are in place by the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine to improve potential outcome of these procedures. Recent research shows no elevated risks of children being born with birth defects or other abnormalities as a result of egg freezing.
Cryopreservation is a safe procedure that allows the woman to take her time in planning a family. The process for retrieving the eggs has been proven to be both effective and safe. The methodologies for egg freezing have decreased the likelihood of an egg being damaged during IVF and the egg freezing processes. New guidelines have made the processes, cryopreservation and IVF, safer for the woman.
