Leave for the future: why freeze eggs

Today, many girls at the age of 20-25 decide that they are ready to become a mother not earlier than 35. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with that. From a physiological point of view, a woman fully matures by the age of 20, but psychological maturity comes later.

Women who give birth to their first child after 35 perceive motherhood positively, rarely fall into depression, and more often can provide the child with proper care and give a good upbringing. However, from the point of view of gynecologists, the decision to postpone reproductive function until better times is associated with certain risks. Can they be reduced?

ovarian reserve

Every woman has a genetically predetermined supply of eggs in her ovaries – the ovarian reserve. It is laid in utero in the embryo of a girl. By the time of birth, there are about a million of them, by the onset of puberty, about 300 thousand eggs remain. And every month their number is reduced.

This process cannot be influenced in any way, the ovarian reserve is limited and cannot be replenished. No matter how good a woman looks, no matter how well she takes care of her health, this does not affect the number of eggs. And the quality, unfortunately, too. It decreases with age. In a woman older than 38 years, the probability of spontaneous mutations of the embryo is higher than in 20-25 years.

how to estimate the reserve of eggs?

If a woman, due to her views on life or other reasons, wants to postpone pregnancy until a later date, she must definitely go to a reproductive specialist and comprehensively assess the body’s capabilities. It’s not difficult at all. An ultrasound examination and a blood test for sex hormones are performed.

Among other indicators, the level of anti-Müllerian hormone is very important: it can be used to assess the ovarian reserve. If the indicator ranges from 5 to 10, the egg supply is good. If less than one, the stock is almost depleted. Such a result can be a serious wake-up call for a woman: she should not delay the birth of children.

What to choose: egg freezing or embryo freezing?

If a woman still wants to delay having children, doctors may suggest freezing her eggs or embryos (fertilized eggs). Which option is better?

Before the embryo is frozen, its cell can be sent for genetic examination and a conclusion about the health and even the sex of the unborn child can be obtained. With egg freezing, such tests cannot be performed, but this method is newer. And yet, usually the choice depends on the presence or absence of a partner at the moment who is ready to become a father in the future.

By the way, women often resort to egg freezing before cancer treatment. After all, chemotherapy certainly damages the ovarian reserve.

How is the egg freezing procedure performed?

Today, a modern vitrification method, which appeared in 2010, is used to preserve eggs. Each cell is evaluated by an embryologist for maturity and frozen in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of minus 196 degrees.

Compared to the cryopreservation method that was used before, vitrification allows you to freeze eggs for a long time without losing their quality and viability. The probability of cell damage during the freezing process is minimized, and the storage of vitrified cells is unlimited.

When a woman decides it’s time to get pregnant, the egg is thawed and IVF is performed. At the same time, the success rate in this case is higher than if the patient did not freeze eggs and simply came to a similar procedure at her age: the number and quality of eggs decreases every year, which negatively affects the result of the IVF procedure. Therefore, it is so important to freeze the egg as early as possible if there is an idea to postpone the pregnancy until later.