Is the Chilling Reality of Egg Freezing Worth it?

Egg freezing is a hot topic. Discover the chilling reality and implications of egg freezing – before you decide to put your fertility on ice.

Apple and Facebook dropped the latest infertility bombshell – offering egg freezing to employees. This got people talking.  My favorite reaction comes from Mackenzie Dawson of The New York Post: ‘It’s a devil’s deal in the guise of a gender equity perk. What a weird cynical message it sends.’

It’s just over a year since the American Society for Reproductive Medicine – ASRM – lifted a ban on egg freezing, to offer hope to women with cancer, cautioning: ‘Marketing this technology for the purpose of deferring childbearing may give women false hope, encourage them to delay childbearing. There is concern regarding success rates.’ What a wonderfully understated soundbite!

Chilling facts of Egg Freezing

Each month, at ovulation, a woman may produce an egg or even two.

To harvest enough eggs for freezing or ‘oocyte preservation,’  ovaries are hyper stimulated by a cocktail of hormones injected twice daily during a rigorous 3-week programme to trick them into producing a year’s supply, 12 or more.  Scheduled blood tests and vaginal-probe  ultrasound track progress. Around 50% of women require hospital treatment for bleeding and swelling resulting from severe Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome – OHSS – which can be life-threatening. Harvesting of eggs is done under sedation. Ovaries are punctured by a long needle for suction extraction, are scarred. Misplaced needles can damage bladder, bowel or kidney. It’s an invasive and risk-filled procedure, repeated over three or more cycles.

 Ready for a baby?

Step 1. Female hormones prepare the womb for pregnancy.

Step 2. Thaw eggs

Step 3. Fertilise eggs

Looks simple enough, doesn’t it?

What they don’t tell you

You are having IVF!  Egg freezing in liquid nitrogen hardens shells. Ordinary IVF won’t work. You’ll need ICSI  – Intracytoplasmatic Sperm Injection – to inject the sperm right into the egg.

What are the figures?

Egg freezing is marvellous. Some say it will be bog standard in ten years, It’s egg thawing that’s the problem.Maybe the 77% failure rate for women who freeze their eggs aged 30, speaks for itself. IVF and ICSI failure rates are over the 75% range. If each cycle costs €8,000+ and you need three or four, it adds up.

And the real cost?

I don’t buy into the notion of big companies evil intent. Delaying motherhood has much more to do with finding a partner to have a child with, financial stability and career prospects in a competitive workplace.  After all, Silicone Valley’s laddish culture spawned Tinder, a hot instant hook-up site. Any surprises that it supports cutting-edge bio-tech?

Why should a healthy woman be encouraged to  defer motherhood? Pregnancy risks increase with age. What about the kids? Older parents, fewer siblings and aged grandparents. Let’s give women permission to procreate, giving real financial,child care, and social support. The traditional model of ‘Mom and Dad’ is changing. (to be continued!)

Egg  freezing gives no guarantees. It offers slim hope to cancer patients.The gonadotrophic drugs used may induce early menopause, causing infertility.That is the bitter irony that breaks my heart.

The stress of infertility is comparable to that of a cancer sufferer. Add in depression, post traumatic stress disorder – PTSD, and relationship breakdown. That’s a huge cost and a chilling reality.

Should women have to use egg-freezing at their fertility peak …  and face serious health risks, uncertainty and  huge financial costs later on in life? It’s often women who manage sick and aging parents, becoming carers for two generations.

Can we not make careers compatible with motherhood and give kids the pleasure of active, young grandparents?

Tell me, am I missing something here?

Here is a link to the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists guidelines on OHSS: https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/gtg5_230611.pdf