Over the years, and due to various personal and social circumstances, modern women increasingly delay becoming mothers. Whether it is due to moments in life such as not having a stable partner, not having a job that allows them to have the resources to have a baby or for their own projects where motherhood is not contemplated. More and more women are deciding to have a child at an advanced age, a situation in which it is necessary to make decisions that avoid jeopardizing the chances of fertility in the medium term.
Women should keep in mind that, unlike men, their fertility has an expiration date. Men are known to produce sperm consistently throughout their lives, while women are born with a set number of eggs that they will develop during their childbearing years. This makes it essential for them to consider options such as egg cryopreservation, a modern technique where it is possible to store their gametes in a laboratory with a view to safe motherhood in the future.
But what is egg cryopreservation?
The egg cryopreservation technique is a technique that involves the extraction of eggs from a woman’s ovary to be cryopreserved or frozen in a laboratory.
Through this procedure, women under the age of 37 will be able to freeze a limited number of eggs (about 20 for each procedure), which will then be frozen fertilized in the laboratory and transferred to the patient when she decides to become a mother through assisted reproduction treatments.
The process begins with the ovarian stimulation through medication, so that the woman produces enough eggs for its extraction. After some analysis where the size and number of the follicles produced can be seen, the eggs are extracted by a puncture of the ovaries and aspiration of the follicles under ultrasound vision and vaginally. This intervention is an outpatient procedure, requiring anaesthesia and subsequent observation for a variable period.
Once in the laboratory, the eggs are prepared and classified according to their quality and maturity and then proceed to cryopreservation. The number of eggs that can be retrieved from the woman depends on her response to the hormone treatment provided, so it is not possible to predict how many eggs will be obtained after the ovarian puncture. What is known is that in 85% of the procedures it is possible to have a correct response of stimulation to ovulation, so the absence of eggs for cryopreservation is very unlikely.
If you need more information about this or other fertility treatments, please refer to our Inser’s headquarters in Bogotá, Medellín, Rionegro, Pereira and Cartagena. There, our fertility specialists will guide you on the most suitable fertility treatment for you according to your own health conditions.
InSer Group.
