London - Encouraging women to freeze their eggs may be offering them false hope until success rates are published, experts warn.
Between 2008 and 2013 an average of just eight babies were born from frozen eggs each year. The numbers of women freezing and storing their eggs – at a cost of up to £15 000 (about R300 000) – are thought to have almost tripled in the same time period, from 2 476 to 7 047.
Big companies such as Google and Facebook have also suggested they may help women to freeze their eggs so that they are able to pursue their careers in their 20s and 30s. Fertility experts are calling for data on success rates to be published to help women make an informed choice.
Melanie Davies, a fertility expert at University College Hospital in London, told the Observer: “Ten years ago this was an experimental treatment, but egg freezing has become routine. But women are still in the dark on success rates.”
Adam Balen, of the British Fertility Society, said women in their late 30s and in their 40s are being given false hope that freezing their eggs has a good chance of having children.
“We have to be realistic about the prospects for success,” he said. “Essentially, the younger a woman is when she has her eggs frozen the more likely they are to survive, fertilise and achieve a pregnancy, but even then there is no guarantee.”
IVF pioneer Robert Winston has said egg freezing has been “grossly oversold” in the past and the industry is doing nothing to deter women with little chance of success, primarily those in their 40s.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said it will publish data on egg freezing in January.
Daily Mail