Benefits And Risks Associated With Social Egg Freezing

Social egg freezing is a technique for preserving a healthy woman's capacity to conceive in the future. Here, unfertilised eggs developed and retrieved from ovaries are frozen and kept for later use. It is a known fact that fertility declines as people age and this procedure is gaining popularity as it promotes reproductive liberty by allowing women to postpone childbirth to a time they are ready to take on the responsibility of motherhood. It should ideally be performed in mid- to late-twenties to maximise their chances of having a future pregnancy however, it is most commonly done after the age of 35. 

One may consider egg freezing for several reasons, ranging from a medical issue to preservation of fertility. Moreover, radiation and chemotherapy can have a negative impact on cancer patients, making it difficult to conceive after beating cancer. As such, they opt to freeze eggs before treatment. The process has multiple steps which include ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval and freezing. 

Benefits of egg freezing

Women have more options today in their social life – professionally, educationally along with access to reliable birth control. Gender disparity has been decreased to a large extent as a consequence of the changing social landscape, which has resulted in an increase in the number of women over the age of 35 seeking aid from infertility clinics. Even in the current dip of India’s fertility rate, education of the girl child is being attributed as a key factor for the country’s achievement of replacement level fertility for the first time.

As such, choosing the option of social egg freezing allows young women to become biological parents by freezing their eggs that can be thawed at a later stage. If collected at an earlier age, the eggs thus collected will be more in quantity and possess no genetic anomalies, lowering the risk of having children with chromosomal abnormalities. Egg freezing also has a lot of advantages for women who have endometriosis. Endometriosis causes scar tissue to form in the reproductive system which can make it difficult to conceive. It can also reduce egg quality by causing an inflammatory environment in the reproductive system. Furthermore, several therapies for endometriosis symptoms, including surgery, might harm the ovaries and deplete the number of eggs that remain.

Since our biology does not follow our preferred timelines, many women also witness fertility anxiety. Coupled with not finding the right partner to share life with, this anxiety can pressurise women to compromise on their choices. As such, for all these reasons, people can and are now opting for social egg freezing.

What else should one know?

To make an informed decision, it is important that women are also educated on the risk factors associated with social egg freezing. Generally, when a woman conceives late in life there are some inherent risks associated, including miscarriage. Women who become pregnant at an advanced age are at an increased risk of gestational diabetes, caesarean delivery and pre-term delivery of a baby with low birth weight.  It is important that a doctor takes proper assessment of the patient’s health so that such potential hazards can be minimised. 

Another medical risk associated with the process is the procedure of ovarian stimulation. Though the data on the effects of ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval is limited, some older women with infertility have reported a few adverse effects. Fatigue, nausea, headaches, abdominal pain, breast tenderness and irritability are common side effects of mild to moderate ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, but they can usually be managed. In very rare cases, severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome can occur in some patients, resulting in blood clots, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, dehydration and vomiting, requiring hospitalisation.  With the advancement of technology and by approaching the right IVF expert, these drawbacks of social egg freezing can be further eliminated.

When one is ready to conceive, their frozen eggs are thawed, fertilised with a partner or donor’s sperm in a lab and placed in the bearer or gestational carrier's uterus. The doctor may propose Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) or other advanced techniques depending on the nature of treatment. 

Dr Kshitiz Murdia

Guest Author The author is CEO and Co-founder of Indira IVF