Fertility Preservation

A woman’s fertility is at its highest in her late teens and twenties but, for many women having a baby at this stage of life is not an option. Many women are postponing having their family until their late 30’s and finding it difficult to conceive.

Unfortunately, when a woman is older and makes the decision to have a child, it is often harder to conceive and her chances of miscarriage are greater. This is because the number and quality of the eggs in the ovaries declines rapidly from about 35 years of age. This is a biological trend we can do nothing about.

The effects of these changes are best illustrated by the national IVF figures, provided by the HFEA’s most recently published data, showing that the success of IVF also declines with increasing age (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Live birth rate per IVF cycle (HFEA 2003-04 - Published 2006)

We know that the success of IVF in an older woman using eggs donated from a younger woman is dependent mostly on the age of the young woman donor i.e. a ‘young’ egg is more fertile and the resulting embryos have a higher potential to implant.

So is it possible to put a woman’s eggs into "suspended animation" so that they don’t age with her?

The human egg is a very large cell and, until recently, there wasn’t the technology to freeze and thaw it such that it remained viable for subsequent fertilisation. The reason for this was the damage caused by the ice crystals forming within the cell. However, in recent years the technology has improved, and now there are ways to freeze eggs, minimise crystal formation and retain their viability, so that they can then be stored and used at a later date if necessary.

Here at the GCRM we offer fertility preservation whereby the woman goes through the IVF treatment process to the point where her eggs are retrieved from her ovaries and they are then frozen prior to fertilisation.

The technology is relatively new but the results are encouraging, such that units around the world are achieving 25% pregnancy rates using cryopreserved (frozen) mature eggs. This compares favourably with the success rates of IVF at the same age (see Figure 1, above). The number of babies born following these procedures is increasing all the time (nearly 500 reported by the end of 2006).

It is important to realise that the decline in fertility is due to the "age of the eggs" and therefore fertility preservation should apply only to women who are less than 36 years of age. There are exceptional circumstances (e.g. a higher than average level of AMH) when it may be a viable option up to the age of 38 years.

If you feel that fertility preservation might be for you and would like to learn more then please click HERE for a factsheet.