THEL Social Freezing it can be a solution for all those women who cannot have a child or who decide to have one later in life. That’s what it is about.
Social Freezing, fertility and prolonged youth: the social reasons
Raffaela Di Pace, gynecologist
Over the years in Europe and especially in Italy, the birth rate has dropped significantly. In 2019 it was 1.53 children per woman. Furthermore, the average age at which European and especially Italian women have their first child is rising rapidly: the 2020 data tells us to be 31.4 years old.
The higher level of education, the more massive entry of women into the world of work, often with roles that provide for a career possibility and also changes in the couple’s relationships, lead to planning the pregnancy later and later.
Oocytes, sperm and the passing of time
However, if the best economic and social conditions lead to a prolonged youth, nothing can be done from the point of view of fertility. When the oocyte heritage (i.e. the follicles that remain and that can allow to conceive) is reduced in quantitative terms and worsened in qualitative terms, not even the techniques of medically assisted procreation (PMA) can allow to obtain a pregnancy. The rate of in fact, success still depends on the age of the woman and her follicular patrimony.
If this rating holds for women – where we know fertility peaks between 20 and 30, it’s still good between 30 and 35, but deteriorates rapidly between 35 and 40 – it also affects men. . In which, with age, even if in a more gradual way, there is still a reduced production capacity of spermatozoa able to reach conception.
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Cryopreservation of oocytes, a solution
Precisely for this reason the number of children born later is increasing heterologous fertilization (using i.e. donor eggs or sperm). But what can you do to try instead of preserve your fertilitythat is, the ability to have a genetically own child even at an older age?
Born as a technique to preserve fertility in those people who for health reasons – primarily cancer and related therapies or surgery – would have lost their reproductive capacity, cryopreservation of oocytes in the absence of medical indications it is instead becoming a technique that more and more women require, as it allows them to to preserve the possibility of having children of their own in a postponed era widening the window of opportunity to become parents.
Freezing eggs: how does it work?
In this case, the possibility of success of the reproductive technique depends on the age at which the oocyte freezing took place and not on the current age. If you use frozen eggs at 30 for a woman who is currently 40, her chances of getting pregnant are pretty much the same as she was at that age. It is becoming more and more present in the minds of women if they want postponing the pregnancy project can preserve “young” oocytes, freeze them and use them after a few yearshence the name “Social Freezing“.
Social Freezing: how much it costs
The causes of postponing a pregnancy can be different: from some research conducted it seems that the main one is lack of a partner with whom you can share a parenting project, immediately after the non-synchronism between work commitment and career perspective and pregnancy research. If the NHS rightly bears the costs for the procedure in patients who do so for medical reasons, at the moment the social freezing is instead the patient’s responsibility for all those women who want to do it just to postpone the pregnancy and are wandering in Italy between 4000 -8000 euros.
Where and how
The technique first involves a careful interview to assess motivations and state of health in a center that deals with MAPthe execution of some exams that allow you to exclude infections or other pathologies which would contraindicate the procedure and especially some tests hormonal which instead are fundamental for evaluating the ovarian reserve.
The egg reserve
If this is good and suggests the possibility of an adequate egg collection, we proceed to induction of a superovulationthrough the use of some drugs that produce multiple ovulation and then through a procedure carried out in a day-hospital regime with anesthesia, we proceed to egg retrieval. These come then frozen so that they can be thawed and used later.
What is the best age for Social Freezing
Although the procedure is quite simple and rapid, it involves minimal risks of complications, mainly related to the therapy for the induction of ovulation and egg retrieval and above all for how much, much cryopreservation techniques have been improved in recent years, it is not certain that once thawed the oocytes are suitable for fertilization and in any case the possibility per defrosting cycle is around 18%. For this reason, it is essential that the number of oocytes stored is adequate and therefore that the ovarian reserve is satisfactory at the time of collection. This causes the best age for cryopreservation is less than 35 years.
Correct information
Limitations should also be considered regarding the use and fertilization of stored oocytes because it is important to consider that a later age pregnancy still carries a greater risk of complications and a greater number of fetuses with abnormalities. From an ethical and moral point of view, up to what age is it right and appropriate for the mother and the child (who will find himself with increasingly older parents) to become such? There is still no precise regulation in this regard and in the face of numerous ethical and social issues it is, for now, very important to inform all women of the possibility of doing so but also of its limits, risks and costs.
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