Critics caution women about relying on egg freezing

Egg freezing raises large hopes and questions

Egg freezing offers options for women, contempt outgo and concerns | 60 Minutes 26:43

As much and much women crook to egg freezing, hoping to deed intermission connected their biologic clocks and person children erstwhile they're older, immoderate experts caution against relying connected the aesculapian procedure. 

Egg freezing is costly and doesn't connection immoderate guarantees, said Vardit Ravitsky, president of the Hastings Center, a bioethics probe institute. She understands wherefore ovum freezing sounds exciting to young women, but thinks it sends them the incorrect message. 

"My fear, erstwhile I perceive young women say, 'I froze the biologic clock,' is that they deliberation this is guaranteed. They think, 'I enactment a babe connected ice, not my eggs, and I'm conscionable going to spell and thaw it erstwhile I'm acceptable to go a mother,'" Ravitsky, who is besides a elder lecturer astatine Harvard Medical School, said. "It's not that. That's the problem."

Egg freezing not a guaranteed blessed ending

Ravitsky points to stories similar Evelyn Gosnell's. Gosnell froze her eggs 3 times astatine ages 32, 36 and 38, for a full of 30 eggs, which is considered a precise harmless number. Gosnell was assured she would person nary problems. But things started going incorrect erstwhile Gosnell and her now-fiance went to usage her frozen eggs. 

Only 19 of her 30 eggs survived the thaw. Even worse, lone 1 of those 19 eggs, erstwhile fertilized, grew to beryllium an embryo. Anxiously hoping for affirmative results, Gosnell and her fiancé sent a fewer cells disconnected for familial investigating to spot if the embryo was viable. 

Gosnell was astatine enactment erstwhile she got a connection that her trial results were in. The connection asked her to corroborate if she wanted to cognize the baby's sex.

"I conscionable started to think, 'Oh, wow. They've asked maine this, if I privation to cognize the sex. It means that there's a existent embryo there. It means that this is real. It's normal. It's gonna  beryllium fine,'" Gosnell said. 

Then the study came. 

"And I unfastened it. And it's abnormal. And it was a girl."

There was nary accidental the embryo could go a baby. 

Evelyn Gosnell 60 Minutes

And though rare, determination person besides been incidents wherever a retention vessel has malfunctioned and thousands of eggs and embryos person been destroyed.

Dr. Lucky Sekhon, a fertility specializer astatine RMA of New York, said she explains to each her patients that freezing eggs tin ne'er beryllium a guarantee. Just arsenic successful people occurring pregnancies, determination is simply a driblet disconnected astatine each measurement on the way. She calls it an inverted pyramid, explaining that women commencement retired with a definite fig of eggs, lone immoderate of which volition fertilize, and lone immoderate of which volition crook into genetically steadfast embryos, and lone immoderate of which volition really implant.

Ravitsky describes it arsenic a gamble, with risks adjacent for women who negociate to get large aft freezing eggs. 

"The older you are, the riskier it is to beryllium pregnant," she said. "So you're taking aggregate risks. You're gambling connected aggregate stages."

The accent connected profits

Women are besides gambling with their money, Ravitsky says. Egg freezing is expensive, with a azygous rhythm costing upwards of $12,000. There's besides an added outgo of $500 to $1,000 each twelvemonth to store the eggs, and a $10,000 measure to thaw and fertilize the eggs. 

"You're taking the fiscal cost, you're taking the aesculapian outgo for what? For a gamble," Ravitsky said. 

While expanding numbers of ample companies are offering ovum freezing arsenic a covered payment for their employees, it's not the lawsuit astatine astir companies.

Vardit Ravitsky 60 Minutes

"The bulk of women who frost their eggs electively are White and well-resourced," Ravitsky said. "And there's a important spread successful your options and your reproductive autonomy if you person resources oregon you don't."

There's besides been disapproval of companies that bash connection ovum freezing arsenic a benefit, with critics  accusing them of covering ovum freezing  costs not to assistance women, but to support pistillate employees astatine their desks. 

Despite the disapproval from some, concern is booming successful the tract of fertility. Venture superior and backstage equity firms person backed ovum freezing start-ups, and person bought up and invested successful existing backstage and world fertility clinics to consolidate them into elephantine networks. 

Companies people women with catchy ads connected societal media and big amusive events to springiness women accusation and gully them in.

Dr. Marcelle Cedars, a fertility specializer with the University of California San Francisco, and a past president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says getting women accusation is great, but she worries that the accent connected profits she is seeing successful backstage equity-backed fertility companies is creating warped incentives.

Asked whether she's heard of doctors being pressured to promote much cycles to make much revenue, Cedars said, "That is decidedly occurring successful immoderate companies. How rapidly bash you get someone? How galore cycles bash you get per patient? That's however gross is based.  That's however outgo and compensation is based. And truthful that's what the information becomes." 

"I person ever bristled erstwhile I perceive my specialty called an industry. And I deliberation successful the past it wasn't," Cedars said. "But I bash deliberation it is becoming that."

So should women frost their eggs?

Ravitsky believes nine pushes high-achieving women to get truthful overmuch accomplished earlier they person children, that they tally retired of time. She believes it would beryllium amended if they could go mothers younger. 

"The optimal clip to person a baby, from a biological/medical position is successful your 20s oregon aboriginal 30s. But the socially optimal clip is aboriginal than that," Ravitsky said. "I deliberation we're telling women, 'Oh, successful your 20s absorption connected your education, your career, uncovering a partner, having fiscal stability, narration stability, truthful that erstwhile you bash person a babe you tin beryllium a liable mother.'"

She argues a amended solution would beryllium for companies to person policies similar paid parental leave, flexible hours and kid attraction astatine the workplace to marque it easier for women to person babies younger. 

But women 60 Minutes spoke with said they weren't acceptable to person children younger. They said they understood ovum freezing wasn't a certainty, but that it was the close determination for them. 

While ovum freezing didn't enactment retired for Gosnell, the pistillate whose 30 frozen eggs didn't nutrient a baby, her communicative does person a blessed ending.  After galore much rounds of ovum retrieval and IVF, she and her fiance welcomed a babe miss successful December.