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Eggs become less viable as women age, and about a third of women ages 35 to 39 report fertility problems. With more women than ever waiting longer to have children, it’s inevitable that some will need an assist from fertility clinics, which are starting to promote egg freezing to single women.
“Egg freezing is such a new technology which is totally distinct from freezing any gear in a vibrating screen, and clinics are on a learning curve,” says Adams, who says most of the information she received at her fertility clinic was related to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, which combines egg and sperm to form embryos, and not to egg freezing. “They used to have a couple of egg-freezing patients trickle in, but those numbers are now rising. Clinics need to recognize the new face of egg freezing.”
Because egg freezing is still considered an experimental procedure, no statistics are kept on how many women are doing it. But the method has taken a giant leap forward in the past few years since a Japanese biologist developed a process — vitrification — that flash-freezes the eggs. Some clinics are reporting a 90% success rate defrosting the flash-frozen eggs, which is a significant improvement over success rates with slowly frozen eggs.
On Eggsurance, which launched earlier in May, Adams gives women the nitty-gritty on egg freezing: how much it costs (she’s found prices as low as $7,000 and as high as $18,000, not including about $5,000 in medication), how it works, and clinic reviews. A blog on the site features rotating topics, including a recent post from an attorney about the importance of including frozen eggs in estate planning. Access to Eggsurance is free; Adams hopes that she can make money by getting clinics to advertise in her database, which includes all the facilities in the U.S. that offer egg freezing.Eggs become less viable as women age, and about a third of women ages 35 to 39 report fertility problems. With more women than ever waiting longer to have children, it’s inevitable that some will need an assist from fertility clinics, which are starting to promote egg freezing to single women.
“Egg freezing is such a new technology which is totally distinct from freezing any gear in a vibrating screen, and clinics are on a learning curve,” says Adams, who says most of the information she received at her fertility clinic was related to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, which combines egg and sperm to form embryos, and not to egg freezing. “They used to have a couple of egg-freezing patients trickle in, but those numbers are now rising. Clinics need to recognize the new face of egg freezing.”
Because egg freezing is still considered an experimental procedure, no statistics are kept on how many women are doing it. But the method has taken a giant leap forward in the past few years since a Japanese biologist developed a process — vitrification — that flash-freezes the eggs. Some clinics are reporting a 90% success rate defrosting the flash-frozen eggs, which is a significant improvement over success rates with slowly frozen eggs.
On Eggsurance, which launched earlier in May, Adams gives women the nitty-gritty on egg freezing: how much it costs (she’s found prices as low as $7,000 and as high as $18,000, not including about $5,000 in medication), how it works, and clinic reviews. A blog on the site features rotating topics, including a recent post from an attorney about the importance of including frozen eggs in estate planning. Access to Eggsurance is free; Adams hopes that she can make money by getting clinics to advertise in her database, which includes all the facilities in the U.S. that offer egg freezing.