As a recent New York Times article points out, fertility preservation (freezing ones eggs for future use) is still considered experimental by the The American Society for Reproductive Medicine; however, many women (and their parents) are now turning to this revolutionary technology to lessen the stress involved with the infamous biological clock.

While it is true that egg freezing is still considered experimental, the advances in egg freezing techniques have produced amazing results in the field of fertility preservation.  Once reserved for oncofertility to help cancer patients preserve their fertility before undergoing chemotherapy treatment, everyone from career women to young adults are freezing their eggs in hopes to one day use them when they’re ready for a family.  And, as the NY Times feature shows, many parents of these women are helping foot the bill to ensure a grandchild in the near future.

Regardless of who is paying, it is important to understand your options when it comes to fertility preservation.  As the NY Times article notes, freezing your eggs does not guarantee they will be viable for future use. Vitrification, on the other hand, can lessen the additional concerns in something happening to eggs during the freezing and thawing process.  This flash-freezing method yields a 98% survival rate compared to traditional, “slow-freezing” cryopreservation techniques, and New Hope Fertility Center continues to employ vitrification and frozen embryo transfers with continued success; since 2004, we’ve welcomed nearly 150 healthy babies born from frozen embryos.

Read more on our egg banking and freezing options over at New Hope Fertility Center and preserve your fertility today!

Among our other guiding philosophies at New Hope Fertility Center, having the fertility care options that best meet the needs of our potential patients is another prominent protocol at our clinic.

As we’ve outlined in the past couple of weeks as a response to New York Magazine’s Parents of a Certain Age cover story, New Hope continuously seeks to give all patients struggling with infertility issues a chance, no matter what age or FSH level.  Indeed, in the same way, we’re proud to be able to utilize the most recent method in fertility preservation and freezing eggs and embryos: vitrification.

Many of the concerns involved with a woman’s age include the “ticking” of the biological clock, a term developed from our understanding that as a woman ages so do her eggs as their production slows down and a woman enters menopause.  For this and other reasons, many women choose to freeze their embryos in an effort to prevent running into infertility issues in the future when they decide to have children.  As a matter of fact, many sources will mention the risk of eggs not surviving the freezing method, our vitrification method for freezing embryos boasts a 98% survival rate compared to that of traditional egg freezing methods.

Our vitrification method is also what makes our donor program unique.  Many donor programs require the donor recipient and egg donor to cycle at the same time.  At New Hope, we can freeze donor eggs until the recipient is most ready for the donor egg transfer.  By using vitrification to preserve donor eggs, we ensure our fertility care is playing best to the needs of the patient, while also avoiding overmedication often involved in trying to synchronize cycles.

1) 44 y/o came to New Hope Fertility Center with a history of secondary infertility.  She completed a day-6 donor frozen embryo transfer and recently had a positive pregnancy test.  Congratulations!

2)  40 y/o with a history of failed IVF treatments before coming to New Hope is pregnant for her second time with our Natural Cycle IVF treatment.  She recently became pregnant from a frozen embryo transfer that was vitrified from her first Natural Cycle IVF treatment in 2008.  Congrats on the second addition to your family!

In NPR’s special series on “21st Century Families,” recent features focus on the subject of egg freezing and fertility preservation.

Today, as many women choose to pursue their careers, higher education, and other goals before entering the journey into motherhood, they are continually confronted with the biological clock issue. While many women are aware that the quality of eggs decreases as age increases, fertility preservation is progressively being recognized as a healthy alternative among women in their 30s and 40s who have made the choice to wait when it comes to having a family. There is a movement to get women in their 20s to educate themselves on fertility preservation as well, under the assumption that the earlier women are educated, the better they can understand their alternatives (especially during a time issues are being raised in the media concerning the pill).

New Hope Fertility has always made special efforts to help accommodate women who wish to balance a career with the dream of having a family. In particular, because our fertility care options focus on more natural, minimal stimulation protocols, New Hope Fertility patients are able to continue their lives, relatively unhindered by their fertility care.

Additionally, vitrification, a process that previously had low success rates and was somewhat limited to cancer patients hoping to preserve eggs/embryos before seeking treatment is now seeing healthy success rates. Vitrification is a flash freezing method that freezes and thaws the egg at faster rates than previous methods, increasing the cell’s chance of survival. By freezing their eggs/embryos when they are younger, women can effectively preserve their fertility when they are young, to use when they are older and may have otherwise had trouble conceiving.

Although the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology still considers fertility preservation to be in its preliminary stages, NPR’s coverage on the topic along with other media coverage exemplifies the growing awareness among clinics, health professionals, and women about the alternatives available in family planning and infertility prevention. You can read more from NPR here.

A recent study from a fertility clinic in Cyprus completed research that adds to a growing body of work legitimizing frozen embryos as a equal if not superior method for getting women pregnant with IVF. New Hope has been talking and writing extensively

Of the participants in the study, 47 percent of the women who used frozen embryos gave birth compared to 41 percent. Although the percent for births with frozen embryos was higher, the different wasn’t statistically significant, so the study could only claim that the chances of getting pregnant with fresh and frozen embryos was the same. However, because freezing technology is advancing faster than people can change their mindsets, even calling the two methods “equal” is a significant statement to make, as there are still many physicians out there who are skeptical of the ability for people to successfully freeze and thaw eggs without damaging the cells (as was a big risk with older methods for freezing eggs/embryos).

Moreover, while clinics like our own, who are quite adept at utilizing the newest in freezing technology to enhance their IVF procedure outcome, can get significantly higher pregnancy rates with freezing (because the uterine environment can be optimally prepared without the time constraints of embryonic development in real-time, frozen eggs could be a superior method for many reproductive treatments simply for the convenience they allow. As one example, with donor programs that use egg freezing there is no longer the need for donors and recipients to cycle with each other in order to make the donation — eggs can be frozen and banked (stored) for a future date when they are needed.