Egg freezing is the process whereby women opt to freeze their eggs in order to preserve their fertility. The desire to undergo this type of treatment can be for a variety of different reasons including medical and also social reasons.
The process itself involves IVF procedures to stimulate a woman's ovaries to produce a cohort of eggs which are then surgically removed and stored for future use in order to create a pregnancy and live birth, at a time when the patients own fertility may have been compromised.
New techniques for egg freezing now offer the chance for some women to give birth to their own genetic child, even after her fresh eggs have been compromised or she can no longer produce her own eggs and hundreds of babies have been born worldwide following the use of frozen eggs.
Each patient is assessed individually who presents requesting that her eggs are frozen. It is recommended that women over the age of 38 consider very carefully the implications of proceeding with this process since the quality of a woman's eggs significantly declines after this age. Nevertheless each patient will be seen by one of our consultants and all the associated risks of proceeding discussed at the time of consultation.
Detailed below are, broadly speaking, the main types of reasons a woman may wish to cryopreserve her eggs
For more information visit the BMI website.
Sperm freezing is available for those people who are having sperm removed surgically from the testis, for people who may feel that there will be problems providing a sample on the day of treatment, for patients requiring chemotherapy who may wish to freeze sperm beforehand and for patients that are intending on having a vasectomy and wish to store samples of sperm frozen prior to this procedure.
Following a referral for sperm storage, an appointment will be made to see one of the Embryologists. All patients wishing to freeze their sperm are required to undergo routine blood screening for HIV 1 and 2, Hepatitis B and C prior to the storage of their samples. This can be done at your local BMI centre or you GP may be willing to carry these blood tests out for you.
Facilities are provided at each site to produce the samples and each sample is stored using strict, unique identifying codes.
At the appointment HFEA consent forms and additional consent forms will be completed and information given regarding storage. Please allow at least half an hour for this appointment. Sperm may be frozen for a limited period of time (3 months) as a backup sample or it may be frozen for a longer period of time with an annual storage fee being payable.
The statutory storage period for sperm storage is ten years. Samples may be stored longer than this if you or your partner have, or are likely to become, prematurely infertile. If you think this may apply to you please discuss this with your centre. Storage can only be extended for longer than ten years with the agreement of a medical practitioner and provided all fees have been met.
For more information visit the BMI website.
