cThey freeze their eggs because they haven’t yet found the work-life balance, or the right partner, but they don’t want to preclude the possibility of becoming mothers.
It is “social freezing”, the cryopreservation of female gametes not to preserve fertility before a medical treatment that would damage it, for example treatment for breast cancer, but to put young ova in a safe to be used when the conditions are right to have a child. More and more women choose it (in Italy it is done in private clinics, it costs around 3500 euros).
How long to freeze eggs?
Data presented at the last congress of theEuropean Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre) show that few come back to get their eggs back. A Belgian study of over 800 women calculates that only 27 percent recurred, around age 40.
For many, the right time to have a child is after the age of 30. (Getty Images)
A positive result, underlines Danilo Cimadomo, research and development director of the Genera group and coordinator of the scientific committee of the Italian Society of Embryology, Reproduction and Research (Sierr). “Many don’t come back, because they got pregnant naturally. The first goal of social freezing is not to use it: it’s fertility insurance, which makes women feel more serene.
Maybe they use it for a second pregnancy at a more “difficult” age. The age at which the cost-benefit ratio for egg freezing is better is over 35before it is too early because the probability of a natural pregnancy is high ».
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