Demand for egg freezing is rising as more people delay parenthood. Here’s what to know

John Yang:

More people than ever are putting their hopes for parenthood on ice, literally. They're freezing their eggs, removing some of them from their ovaries and storing them for the future. Often, they're doing this well before they intend to start a family. It's a costly procedure that had primarily been used by people undergoing medical treatments like chemotherapy that could affect their fertility.

But now it's becoming more common among healthy women. We asked people taking this step to explain why.

Yulanda:

I'm Yulanda. I'm a professor in Illinois, and I froze my eggs at 36.

Katelyn:

My name's Katelyn. I'm 28 and I'm currently planning on doing egg freezing.

Yulanda:

I knew I wasn't ready to have kids at that moment, but I wanted to preserve some chance of having a biological child in the future.

Katelyn :

I want to just be able to live my life and not feel like I'm on somebody else's clock, or I guess, technically my own clock. Right.

Yulanda:

So my life since I've frozen my eggs, I've gotten a promotion. I've traveled to Paris, Antigua. I'm going to Mexico soon. I got my maternity leave in my contract. It just freed some things for me.

Katelyn:

Especially in your 20s for me, anyways. Like, I'm still exploring and figuring out who I am as a person. Right. I really don't know. And I don't want to saddle myself with such a big decision like having kids when I don't even know who I am and what I'm doing with my life.

Yulanda:

I think that I can bring so much more to being a parent because I've taken that time to discover who I am, and I feel like I'm a much more mature, patient person than I was earlier in life.

Katelyn:

Society puts a lot of pressure on women, too, especially find a partner to have kids, to do all of these things. And there's really no right age to have kids. There's no right age to get married. And I think doing something like this for myself kind of normalizes that, but also gives me that freedom and opportunity.

John Yang:

To learn more about why egg freezing is becoming increasingly common and what it can and cannot promise. Ali Rogan spoke with fertility specialist Dr. Lucky Sekhon, author of "The Lucky Egg: Understanding Your Fertility and How to Get Pregnant," and journalist Natalie Lampert, who wrote "The Big Freeze: A Reporter's Personal Journey into the World of Egg Freezing and the Quest to Control Our Fertility."

Ali Rogin:

Thank you both so much for being here. Lucky, let's start with you. What is egg freezing and why do people do it?

Dr. Lucky Sekhon, Author, "The Lucky Egg": It's basically a method that is used to try and get around the biological clock and preserve one's fertility for the future.

And what you're essentially doing is the first part of IVF. It involves two steps. Stimulating the ovaries to try to get multiple eggs to mature. And then the second part of the process is called an egg retrieval. We're extracting the eggs, and then we look at them under the microscope, and any of the eggs that are mature, we know could one day be possibly fertilized by sperm successfully. So those are the ones that are frozen.

And then those eggs can remain frozen indefinitely. They don't change or degrade over time. And if someone runs into fertility issues later in life, they can utilize those healthier eggs that will have a better chance at turning into healthy embryos.

And Lucky, is there an ideal age at which people should consider freezing their eggs? And also, what are you seeing in terms of the demographics with people that are coming to you for this?

Lucky Sekhon:

Well, the simple answer is the younger, the better, right? Whenever we crunch the numbers and look at the data, the two most important variables that predict success are how many eggs are frozen and at what age it was done.

But truth be told, we see great outcomes even when patients are doing this in their very early 30s, because it's still kind of a subtle shift that's happening in their biological clock at that point.

In terms of changing demographic, we've seen a massive reduction in the mean age of the typical patient coming in to freeze their eggs. It used to be mostly women in their late 30s, and now we're seeing a lot of people do this more proactively. I'm seeing a lot more patients in their late 20s and early 30s.

And along with that, those patients, when they are coming back years later to use their eggs, we are seeing improvements in outcomes because we're seeing lots more eggs being frozen and a better conversion rate when we go to turn those eggs into embryos.

Ali Rogin:

And, Natalie, from your perspective, how popular has egg freezing become, and what do we know about why?

Natalie Lampert:

Author, "The Big Freeze": So, initially, egg freezing was done only out of medical necessity. You know, mostly cancer patients who froze eggs before undergoing chemotherapy, which can leave a woman sterile. But egg freezing very quickly moved beyond doing it for medical reasons.

In 2009, 482 healthy women in the U.S. froze their eggs. And in 2022, nearly 23,000 did, which is something like a 4,000 percent increase in just over a decade. So a few things contributed to this.

First, in 2012, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine removed the experimental label from egg freezing. And then in 2014, Apple and Facebook announced that they would cover the cost of egg freezing for female employees. Like, thousands and thousands of dollars person.

So that kicked off a huge increase in companies offering a whole range of fertility benefits, including egg freezing. And there's also now much more coverage from insurance companies. So those major developments really contributed to egg freezing skyrocketing.

Ali Rogin:

And, Natalie, you've spoken with many patients who have done this. What's prompting them to go down this path?

Natalie Lampert:

What I found while reporting my book was consistent with what the research shows, which is that the vast majority of women freeze eggs because they haven't found the right partner, the person that they want to have children with.

Now, I do want to say that I'm talking mostly about heterosexual women here, and it's important to mention that, you know, for example, women in same sex relationships rely on egg freezing to have biological children. And so the motivations are certainly different for LGBTQ people or solo parents by choice, et cetera.

Ali Rogin:

And Lucky, egg freezing is far from a guarantee. How much should patients be banking on this procedure working?

Lucky Sekhon:

I always emphasize that egg freezing is never a guarantee of future fertility. What you're doing is you're freezing potential. It's not an insurance policy. It's not a sure thing, because human reproduction is inefficient. And when you go through the process of extracting those eggs and freezing them, your freezing potential and that inefficiency doesn't magically go away.

You're still working with a bunch of eggs, which we look at as long shots. You have to eventually, if you want to come back and use them, thaw them, you will lose some eggs at that step, and then maybe 70 to 80 percent may fertilize. And again, this can vary from case to case.

And the biggest drop off is only about half of those fertilized eggs will turn into an embryo. So you really have to start out with a lot more eggs than people often will assume. And we usually talk to patients to emphasize this point by saying, you know, it's like a 10 to 1 ratio from eggs to live birth. But obviously, that ratio is going to vary depending on factors like age and your egg quality.

Ali Rogin:

And Natalie, what do we know about how this affects people once they've gone through it?

Natalie Lampert:

So for many women, freezing their eggs sparks a very positive and powerful psychological shift. The research is very clear on this, and what they feel is powerful relief. They feel less dating pressure, more career focus, and really a break from the constant tick, tock, tick, tock of their ovaries.

What I find even more fascinating is that most egg freezers say that the price tag, it's very expensive and the intense side effects are worth that peace of mind, even if they never end up using their frozen eggs, which is incredibly powerful.

Ali Rogin:

There's a lot on social media that is targeting young women who might be considering doing this. What are some of the pitfalls that you've observed in terms of the efforts to kind of advertise this service to women?

Natalie Lampert:

I'll start by saying the most important thing to remember if freezing eggs is that egg freezing is a backup option. It offers some assurance, but it is not insurance. And that is a very important distinction.

And so what I say to women who are considering freezing is one, choose a reputable clinic, one that's been doing egg freezing and IVF for a long time. Don't go to the shiny new clinic across from your office or the chain of clinics that you always see advertised on social media. Because, Ali, to your point, the marketing is quite aggressive. Those are the two most important things to keep in mind.

Ali Rogin:

Natalie Lampert and Dr. Lucky Sekhon. Thank you so much.

Natalie Lampert:

Thank you.