The fertility specialists of IVF New Jersey recognize that women are waiting longer to start their families than did previous generations. However, women over 35 years of age may find that conceiving a healthy baby is difficult or impossible. Technology has made incredible progress in the field of fertility, but we are still limited by biology in terms of the number and quality of women’s eggs.
Egg freezing by our fertility specialists at IVF New Jersey allows women the freedom to store their eggs when they are younger, in essence becoming egg donors for themselves. Then, when these women are ready to start a family or add on to their existing family, the egg freezing process will have increased their options.
Females have approximately one million eggs at birth. By the time they reach puberty, the number of eggs will have decreased by 50 percent, and will decrease by hundreds more with every passing month. When a woman is in her twenties, the quality of the eggs begins to diminish as well. As she ages, the degeneration of both the number and quality of eggs makes conceiving a healthy baby that much more difficult. Chromosomal defects may also become a concern.
However, when women utilize the eggs of younger women – whether those of egg donors, or those they have donated to themselves for egg freezing at IVF New Jersey – they increase their pregnancy rates to emulate the rates of women in their twenties. If you choose the option of egg freezing, your eggs will be cryopreserved and ready for you when the time comes for you to conceive.
The Egg Freezing Process at IVF New Jersey
Though sperm and embryos (fertilized eggs) have long been successfully frozen, egg freezing technology has been more difficult and thus represents a breakthrough.
One previous difficulty with egg freezing was that the eggs were prone to forming ice crystals during the egg freezing process. The ice crystals, as well as the hardened membrane of the egg, interfered with fertilization. Two technological advances have since improved upon the egg freezing process.
First, a culture media system was developed that inhibits the egg from forming ice crystals during egg freezing: the system dehydrates the egg during egg freezing and rehydrates it when it is thawed, preventing excessive ice crystal formation. Secondly, the innovation of intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, has improved fertilization rates with egg freezing. ICSI is the injection of a single sperm into the egg.
Egg freezing is a new technology and is investigational. But with the new egg freezing innovations used by the fertility specialists of IVF New Jersey, the rates for post-thaw egg survival have increased greatly, and fertilization rates have climbed as well. In turn, there has been an impressive increase in the total number of babies conceived using the egg freezing process.
If you are considering the option of egg freezing, contact the fertility specialists of IVF New Jersey.