Egg freezing, the new trend - should women follow it?
Egg freezing, the new trend - should women follow it?
Introduction:
Egg freezing, a controversial decision, comes with a huge price and often became the reason why women opted out of it. However, the recent news that Apple and Facebook will not pay for the egg freezing of their female employees have made women rethink on the pros and cons of the procedure. Delaying pregnancy can be due to a number of reasons, especially for working ambitious women, it is a bliss that they can store and benefit from it when they are ready.
Yes, women should freeze their eggs
1. Advanced procedures: Egg freezing techniques have advanced to a great extent in recent times and there are no longer risks associated like it used to be a couple of years back. It is absolutely a safe option for many working women who would like to delay conceiving a child yet want the chromosomes to be free of abnormalities which is said to tick in with age.
2. Fight cancer: Women who were detected with cancer had maximum chances of becoming infertile after a few years of treatment or chemotherapy. This concern is now easily solved since women can now freeze their eggs when they are first diagnosed of cancer. This gave patients good hope of living a normal life once they recover completely. The treatment of most of these diseases takes years and that’s when the eggs also age and might develop chromosomal defects.
3. Younger eggs: For career oriented women, getting settled and delivering babies at the right age when eggs are the healthiest is not an easy choice to make. Sacrificing your career and dreams is no longer required if women freezes their eggs. It has become a choice for women in their 20s and 30s to freeze their eggs which they can use for conceiving when they have found the right men, even at the age of 40.
4. Low risk of miscarriage: Younger eggs have lower risks of miscarriage and genetic defects which increases after the age of 30. Women who freeze their eggs at 20 can have a baby when they are 40 with the same eggs that are still of the younger age and in a better condition to produce a hale and hearty child.
5. No rushing into commitments: If a woman feels she is yet to meet the right person with whom she sees herself raising a family and children, she has the freedom to freeze her eggs instead of rushing into relationship for fear of passing the right age for conceiving. This procedure is indeed an option that imparts freedom and peace of mind to women.
6. Bright Career: The option of freezing the eggs would give women more opportunities to do well in their career. Many women have to sacrifice their career for the want of family. This is a great option for career oriented women.
No, egg women should not freeze their eggs
1.Delaying childbirth: Egg freezing was introduced for women fighting cancer or any other disease, the treatment of which might cause infertility. But women are now opting for this technique just to delay childbirth, which seems manipulative.
2.Unsure: whether or not a woman will conceive from frozen eggs is still not 100% sure. Compared to the natural procedure of conceiving, chance of pregnancy is much lower in this method. After spending a big amount to delay childbirth, would you want to face disappointment? This would also mean that you gave up on your chances of conceiving when you could have naturally had the bliss of it.
3.Not for those who fear needles: The procedure of egg freezing requires injection of hormones to increase the production of eggs. This is a lengthy process and requires a lot of patience and ability to fight fear. There are other reports that say that there are no studies to prove that the injected chemicals will not have any side effect or aftereffect on the child or the mother.
4. Strategy to recruit and retain more women: Tech giants such as Apple and Facebook (Google might follow next) have strategically announced the paying of egg freezing bills to women employees only for the sole purpose of recruiting more women. These companies are completely ignoring the risks and uncertainty associated with the procedure.
Conclusion:
Egg freezing is indeed a great option for those troubled with birth defects after recovering from treatments of cancer but the procedure being replaced for normal conceiving only to delay childbirth is not justified. It is like using a longtime contraceptive until one is sure of having a baby. But the failure of this contraceptive method would only lead to infertility which might not be cured after a certain age.
Discussion
- RE: Egg freezing, the new trend - should women follow it? -Deepa Kaushik (11/02/14)
- Egg Freezing could be appreciated as a wonderful scientific invention for those who are really needy and can predict their downsizing fertility in the approaching years. But considering the same as a trend to be followed in general would not be all that apt. Though the big shots in the business structure might get hold of the employees with all that they can do, still this step should not be welcomed from the employee point of view.
We human beings can invent and try to prevent the mis-happenings, but we can never attain the power and authority to change or divert the nature and its flow. Egg freezing can be considered for those with a disease like cancer as they would have a fair chance to have their own kid on the proper age even if they are no more viable to conceive by natural reproductive phenomena. The same cannot be followed by every female as they also need to check the side-effects involved with their health, the possibilities of any medical concern with the child so born, the probabilities of getting conceived with that ovum, the cost and time involved in the phenomena and above all the necessity and urgency to take any such risk.
The natural phenomena is and will ever remain the best possible measure. Intervening with the same would definitely lead to compromise with the health. The hormonal treatment required for increasing the ovum production will affect the health of the female and which might reflect on her health in later years of life. Also, there is no firm declaration that this procedure of freezing the egg might not affect the health condition of the child so born. Again the procedure of increasing the ovum production takes lot of time which could be few years and the cost involved would be equally high.
A female just in order to focus her profession and career, if takes a chance of freezing her egg and delaying the natural process of conception, would make her health to question and that too for an uncertain procedure whether the freezed egg would be able to reproduce or not. It would be high risk play for any female to keep her main charm of becoming a mother on stake just for the sake of her career. Thus, this egg freezing procedure is just good as a help, but is not advisable to use as a trend.
