Egg vitrification is simply the process of freezing a woman’s eggs so that they can be used for fertilization at a later time. While once seen as a highly experimental process, because there are more and more successes with this process and with IVF in general, egg vitrification is not seen as experimental and is a lot more common for couples. At First Fertility Bangkok, we are able to offer egg freezing to our female patients, no matter their age.
The Importance of Egg Freezing
As more and more women decide to wait until they are older to have children, egg freezing has become more important and necessary. Women are establishing their careers, saving to buy a home, and marrying later, all of which will contribute to delay conceiving until they are older. Because modern life can be so busy and stressful, it is very difficult for older women to conceive successfully when they are ready.
Most everyone knows that women’s fertility will decline as she ages. Past the age of forty, women generally have 75% abnormal eggs, which makes it very difficult to have a healthy pregnancy or baby. By freezing eggs when they are younger, women will be able to delay having children until they are ready later in life without risking difficulty getting pregnant. Egg freezing is now a standard procedure that is incredibly effective and safe. Flash freezing, or vitrification, is a better way to freeze eggs than slow freezing. Through experiments and studies, scientists have determined the best way to freeze eggs for later conception.
While people were at first mistrustful of vitrification, women now trust the procedure and are happy to freeze their eggs for later use. This is not a decision to undergo lightly, and our team at First Fertility can provide you with the counselling you need and will keep your eggs safe for you for future use.
Why Freeze Your Eggs
While you may have some concerns over the health and viability of frozen eggs, it will put your mind at ease to know that frozen eggs are almost as healthy as fresh. While it is difficult physically and emotionally to prepare for harvesting eggs, after the harvest is complete you will be able to ensure that you have rested and are in great physical condition before using your eggs.
Women can now preserve their fertility until they are ready in the future to have children. While it makes sense to want to make sure that you are stable and prepared for a family, you do not want to risk your ability to conceive by waiting too long. Freezing your eggs gives you peace of mind.
While for some women, it is a choice to freeze their eggs, others do not have a choice if they are faced with certain illnesses and want to have children in the future. Women who have cancer and have to face radiotherapy or chemotherapy can damage their eggs and decrease their chance of conception in the future.
The Importance of Chromosome Testing
At First Fertility, we make sure that when you are ready to use frozen eggs that we provide you with a chromosomal screening check. We begin by thawing your eggs and fertilising them with sperm. Once they have developed for three days, we carefully check each embryo to make sure that it has 46 chromosomes. This will allow us to check for genetic disorders that result from missing or extra pairs of chromosomes. Our chromosome testing will lower the chance of your baby having a genetic abnormality and will also allow you to select your baby’s gender. By freezing and then screening your eggs, you will have a much higher chance of implantation.
Advances in Egg Vitrification
More than a decade ago doctors were discussing techniques for freezing eggs. While there were many ideas on how to complete this task, there was very little success or progress. Even when egg freezing was becoming more common, it was still experimental and didn’t have a great reputation for working. Luckily, this has greatly changed in recent years, and thanks to trials and studies, egg freezing is now a viable option for women of all ages.
In the past, slow preservation of both embryos and eggs was in trial, and while this works well enough for embryos, it was not the best option for eggs. It was necessary to come up with a different technique, and that improvement was vitrification. By improving the freezing and thawing of eggs, there has been a huge increase in successful conceptions using frozen eggs. While there isn’t any way to guarantee that the process will work, the chances improve all the time, and this is no longer an experimental procedure.
You Need an Egg Bank
When older women are ready to undergo IVF treatment, they are often shocked to find that they do not have an ample supply of eggs. If there are only one or two usable eggs, then the best thing to do is freeze them and return in the future for a second collection. This will allow our professionals to gather more eggs and combine them with the eggs from the first collection. By doing so, we can transfer more eggs to the patient, which will improve the chance of a successful pregnancy.
At First Fertility, we work hard to make sure that we are up to date with research and techniques so that we are able to provide our customers with the highest quality care available. Because no women are alike, we have found it necessary to customise the care that we provide so that it will perfectly meet your needs. Every woman that we treat will be individually assessed and treated so that they will achieve the best possible outcome. Here at First Fertility, your future family is our priority, and we work hard to ensure that we help you achieve your goals of preserving your eggs for the future and having children.