22nd August 2012 | by MFC Team
Ovarian tissue freezing offers women new way of preserving their fertility
A new clinic opening in the United Kingdom is to be the first of its kind in the country to offer women the chance to freeze their ovarian tissue in their 20s and early 30s so it can be re-implanted when they are ready to have children later in their lives. This new fertility preservation option is expensive – costing up to 16,000 pounds in the UK (approx. $25,000 CDN/USD). It also requires minor surgery. Ovarian tissue freezing is only available in a handful of other countries including some of the US states, Denmark, and Belgium. At present, 19 babies have been born as a result of this preservation method. Although still relatively new, some doctors believe ovarian tissue freezing has the potential to become more common as it may be more successful than egg freezing and even IVF.
The procedure involves removing 1/3 of the tissue in one ovary, which is then frozen in liquid nitrogen until the woman is ready to have children. Then the tissue is thawed and re-implanted into the ovary. Within a few months women should begin producing eggs.
To date most of the women who have received this treatment have been cancer patients who want to preserve their fertility prior to beginning chemotherapy. However, ovarian tissue freezing is to be offered in the UK to healthy women who want to preserve their fertility for the purpose of delaying childbearing.
Some doctors are optimistic of the success rates, as the re-implantation of ovarian tissue, if successful, can result in the production of thousands of eggs – with the benefit of the eggs being the age of the woman when her ovarian tissue was frozen. Other doctors suggest that ovarian tissue freezing should not be recommended for “social” reasons, and warn that the procedure can cause scarring or damage to the pelvis, which might make conceiving difficult.
Read the article:
Now women can delay motherhood by freezing their ovaries and having them re-implanted years later [Daily Mail Online]
For more information on fertility preservation, click here.
This treatment doesn’t sit well with me when it isn’t for medical reasons. It seems wrong for a woman to go through this treatment of having part of her ovary removed just so she can have a baby in the future. What about making it easier for her to have a baby now when she’s younger and fertile? Money should be going into that instead of women having to resort to these expensive treatments that only a small group can afford anyway.