Freezing Eggs - What You Need to Know
If for any reason family planning needs to be postponed, cryopreservation, also known as freezing, offers an alternative: eggs are frozen to be used in artificial fertilization at a later time for achieving pregnancy. Dr. Florian Götze, a gynecologist, explains what it entails
Most women are not aware of their rapidly declining fertility from the age of 35 onwards. To counteract this, a process called cryopreservation offers an alternative: freezing eggs to be used for artificial fertilization at a later stage, thus enabling the possibility of getting pregnant. Gynecologist Dr. Florian Götze explains what this entails.
The Problem
The success of infertility treatments is significantly influenced by a woman's age. Unlike other factors, age is essentially uncontrollable and unfortunately leads to lower success rates in treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) for older patients.
According to an informative study involving over 20,000 IVF treatment cycles, it has been shown that in women under the age of 35, the consecutive transfer of five embryos resulted in the birth of a child in approximately 54% of couples. However, after the age of 40, with the same number of available embryos, the success rate drops to less than 20%.
In other words, women over the age of 40 need to undergo approximately three times more treatments with their own eggs through IVF to achieve an equivalent chance of pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the success rates for women of advanced age are often lower due to genetic defects in the eggs, which increase steadily from around the age of 35 and can result in miscarriages or the inability to conceive.
The Potential Treatment
Through the freezing process, the aging of the eggs is halted, and their fertilization potential remains the same as at the time of freezing.
The individual treatment steps largely resemble those of a traditional IVF procedure: After a two-week period of ovarian stimulation using daily injections, mature eggs are retrieved in a short procedure under anesthesia and then frozen at sub-zero temperatures through a process called vitrification (cryopreservation).
It is through this perfected technique of freezing (rapid freezing) developed in recent years that human eggs can retain their fertilization potential after thawing.
Using the innovative method implemented in our center, over 99% of the originally frozen eggs remain viable and suitable for further use after thawing.
At a later time, determined individually by the patient, the treatment continues. The thawed eggs are fertilized with the partner's sperm in the IVF laboratory, and the resulting embryos are transferred into the woman's uterine cavity with the intention of achieving a pregnancy.
The Dilemma: Freezing eggs remains the second-best option
While this technique can provide some limited assurance for realizing future desires for children, it should still be considered a secondary choice.
There are no guarantees of success in this therapy. It is only suitable for women who have a clear medium-term intention for family planning but face short-term factors (such as health, professional, or social reasons) that clearly impede immediate realization of their desire for children.
Therefore, the primary goal for all interested women should always be to achieve a healthy pregnancy at a young age through natural means.
The term «social freezing» is, in our opinion, an unfortunate choice and potentially misleading. The storage of eggs under such a program is based on the individual's own request, and regulations in our country only permit strictly personal (autologous) future use of such eggs.
This measure is, therefore, a form of exclusive personal assurance for the individual woman and does not imply an altruistic, societal measure like classic (allogeneic) organ donation or public umbilical cord blood donation through a public cord blood bank, as the name might suggest.
Extending Fertility
This method is highly effective in extending female fertility to a certain extent into the future. However, it does not guarantee future pregnancy.
The success rate of the treatment is primarily determined by the woman's age at the time of egg freezing: the younger, the higher the chance of pregnancy.
The fertility network Fertiprotekt recommends undergoing such treatment before reaching the age of 35, as it is more promising than in later years. The fertilization potential of an egg is three times higher at under 35 years old compared to over 40 years old.
The age at which the thawed eggs/embryos are transferred plays a minor role and does not affect the pregnancy rate.
The retrieved eggs are rapidly cooled to -196º Celsius in liquid nitrogen. We safely store the eggs for up to 5 years under continuous monitoring until you decide to pursue your desire for children. However, you can extend the preservation for another maximum of 5 years.
National professional societies have proposed a (self-)commitment to establish a maximum age for embryo transfer using eggs obtained in this manner. This is intended to prevent high-risk pregnancies in advanced age. We welcome and support this initiative and will establish the corresponding maximum age as a guideline for treatment in our center.
As of the current state of knowledge, this method is socially controversial. A counseling session should always consider the individual's specific situation and allow for an individual decision by the patients.
