Fertility Preservation
Whenever there is a possibility of reduction or loss of fertility due to any reason, the genetic material – gametes can be frozen and stored for future use. Men can freeze sperm, semen, or testicular tissue. Women can freeze eggs/oocytes or ovarian tissue. A couple can freeze embryos/blastocysts
For Women
Who benefits from Fertility Preservation?
Social freezing
delay the age of becoming a mother.
Fertility preservation techniques are an option that modern reproductive medicine offers us for all those women who, for different reasons, decide to delay motherhood.
In today’s world, the age at which a woman decides to have children is increasingly delayed, significantly influencing the chances of achieving a successful pregnancy.
In simple terms, if a woman decides to preserve or freeze her eggs when they are “young”, the moment she decides that she wants to have a baby, she will be able to use these eggs and thus have the same chances of pregnancy as she would have had at the time of preservation. Fertility preservation preserves an opportunity to conceive later at any age with her own eggs.
Females have a biological clock. With advancing age, it gets increasingly difficult to conceive with your own eggs. More and more women are turning to fertility preservation through egg freezing – oocyte freezing to have the peace of mind that they will have oocytes in young condition when they decide to start a family, giving them a better chance of conceiving.
Medical reasons
Females who are going to start medical or surgical treatments that will affect their fertility. This treatment varies from cancer therapy, transplant, major ovarian surgery, etc. This woman can opt to freeze their eggs or ovarian tissue to ensure that in the future, they will be able to achieve pregnancy once the disease is cured.
Why is Egg freezing – Oocyte freezing becoming popular?
Improved success rates
Egg freezing is done by the vitrification method now. This method, which became popular after 2007, has revolutionized reproductive medicine. Now it’s possible to get close to a 100% survival rate of frozen eggs and embryos. Pregnancy rates in IVF using frozen eggs are also equally improved.
Increased need
The increasing need to delay motherhood for social or career reasons has made the technique more popular.
Survival after cancers or many such illnesses and excellent quality of life after the cure has opened a new avenue for these women.
How is Egg freezing – Oocyte freezing done?
The process is similar to conventional IVF till the stage of egg retrieval. The first step is stimulation with gonadotropin hormones ( FSH & or HMG ) to create more eggs. Once the follicles have reached the appropriate size, oocyte retrieval is done. It is a short procedure under mild anaesthesia. Here eggs are aspirated by sonography guidance by a needle inserted through the vagina. These eggs are then assessed for maturity; In conventional IVF, the mature eggs are fertilized. While here, mature eggs are frozen by vitrification.
At the time of use, these eggs are thawed (warmed or brought back to life) and fertilized exactly like routine IVF-ICSI treatment.
How is ovarian tissue freezing done?
When there is an urgency to start lifesaving treatment, and there is no enough time to stimulate the ovaries and freeze eggs, or ovaries have to be removed, a very small piece from the ovary can be frozen. A specialized programmed slow freezer with AI is used.
When one wants to use it, it can be transplanted back.
How Long Can I Freeze My Eggs?
The egg storage period, with advances in vitrification technique, is indefinite.
How many eggs shall I freeze?
The amount of eggs required to achieve a healthy pregnancy is not certain. This depends on female age as well as individual fertility. One IVF stimulation cycle average yield of mature eggs is 10 to 15. However, this can vary widely according to age and ovarian reserve capacity.
In one of the largest published studies analyzing outcomes from almost 1500 women who froze their eggs at age 35 or younger, the chance of live birth increased from 15% for women who froze just 5 eggs to 61% for women who froze 10 eggs, and 85% for women who froze 15 or more eggs.
Advantages of egg freezing – Oocyte freezing
The preservation of oocytes is so stable that there is no limited time after which they should be used, which allows each woman to decide the exact moment when she decides to use them to get pregnant.
Disadvantages of egg freezing – Oocyte freezing
The reproductive prognosis of each patient depends on the quality and number of eggs that are obtained. The preservation of fertility or freezing of eggs does not guarantee a future pregnancy. The exact number required to achieve a live born child is unpredictable. However, it does allow the possibility of trying an in vitro fertilization treatment with the same probabilities that they would have had at the time of vitrification.
How Safe Is It?
Treatment with frozen eggs is proven to be safe for mother and child.
What If It Doesn’t Work?
If none of your frozen eggs leads to a successful pregnancy, you can try to conceive naturally or start fresh egg production IVF treatment, depending on your age. If you don’t have eggs, you can go for an egg donation. You can have IVF with a sperm donor if you don’t have a partner.
BFI has to its credit ‘FIRST LIVE BIRTH OF INDIA WITH FROZEN EGGS’. We have a huge experience of egg/oocyte freezing. It is routine for us to freeze eggs, even for donor eggs programme. We have an excellent setup, skilled embryologists, and clinicians to take care of your most precious biological material.
Explore the possibility of making your fertility safe. Do not hesitate to visit us!
Book an appointment or a video consultation with one of our doctors today.
For Men
Who benefits from Fertility Preservation?
Medical reasons
Males who are going to start medical or surgical treatments that will affect their fertility. This treatment varies from cancer therapy, transplant, testis or pituitary surgery, etc. These men can opt to freeze their sperm or testicular tissue to ensure that in the future, they will be able to achieve pregnancy once the disease is cured.
Other reasons
Men with a very poor sperm count can freeze their sperm for future use as this situation can deteriorate. Men with azoospermia –zero counts may get sperm from their testes. They can preserve these sperm for future use.
How is testicular freezing done?
When there is an urgency to start lifesaving treatment, and there is not enough time to collect enough samples of sperm, we can collect a very small piece of tissue from the testis, divide in multiple and freeze it.
When one wants to use them, they can be warmed – thawed and used like freshly collected sperm from the testis.
How Long Can I Freeze My Sperms?
The sperm storage period with modern freezing and storage technology is indefinite.
How Safe Is It?
Treatment with frozen sperm is proven to be safe for mother and child.
ADVANTAGE BFI
BFI has been doing sperm freezing and testicular tissue freezing since 1998. We have achieved live birth with sperm frozen with us for more than 10 years. We have an excellent setup, skilled embryologists, and clinicians to take care of your most precious biological material.
Explore the possibility of making your fertility safe. Do not hesitate to visit us!
Ahmedabad