What is the cut off age for freezing eggs?
As women age, their risk of miscarriages, chromosomal abnormalities, birth defects, and trouble conceiving increases. To ensure healthy and viable eggs, some fertility experts suggest limiting elective egg freezing to women age 38 and under.
Let's get this out there: no, technically, there's no universal age limit for egg freezing—or any assisted reproductive technology.
Cons of egg-freezing
The procedure generally costs around $10,000 and is not often covered by health insurance. Additionally, there is no guarantee that it will result in a pregnancy carried to term, especially if you're not in peak fertility when your eggs are frozen.
Before beginning the egg-freezing process, you'll likely have some screening blood tests, including: Ovarian reserve testing. To determine the quantity and quality of your eggs, your doctor might test the concentration of follicle-stimulating hormone and estradiol in your blood on day three of your menstrual cycle.
Studies show that age 37 is the ideal time for egg freezing. Women with frozen eggs at this age are twice as likely to get pregnant than those with none. From 37 and above, the clinic will have to extract as many eggs as possible. Women over 40 will need well over 20 eggs for just a 50% chance of success.
However, while egg freezing can be done at any age, it's best to start early in one's reproductive life so that more eggs can be frozen before they begin to decline in quality.
“Freezing eggs after the age of 40 is not typically recommended but may be considered on a case-by-case basis,” says Cross.
If you think you could be entering perimenopause and are still hoping to conceive, Dr. Christmas recommends seeking the advice of a fertility specialist to explore cryopreservation, also known as elective egg freezing. This is a means of preserving the quality of your eggs before they deteriorate further with age.
The stimulation cycle for egg freezing encourages more of the immature egg cells to mature so that more eggs can be harvested. This explains why egg freezing does not cause early onset menopause. Another risk often discussed when considering egg freezing is cancer risk.
People worry that this puts pressure on women to pay for egg freezing in order to safeguard their careers, instead of improving standards for working mothers. There are also concerns that this cost could worsen unequal access to fertility care between women who can afford it and those who can't.
Is it better to freeze eggs or do IVF?
Egg freezing and thawing at a later date provides a higher pregnancy success rate than using fresh embryos during assisted reproductive technology, say the study authors.
“There is this benefit over not freezing even at 37, 38, 39, albeit then your chance of getting a baby out of that are much less than if you had frozen at a younger age,” says Dr. Steiner. While it's not a fail-safe, it is at least reassuring that women over 35 who are thinking about egg freezing are not too late.
Deciding how many eggs to freeze
Women 38 to 40 should freeze 30 mature eggs for a 75% chance of having at least one child. Women 40 to 42 should freeze 30 mature eggs for a 50% chance of having at least one child.
Egg freezing typically works best for those in their 20s to early 30s, and is not usually recommended for women over 38 years.
The process takes several weeks from first taking medication to having the egg collection and in total there will be between 3 and 6 appointments.
Thawing issues are also associated with age. A 2017 US study by researchers at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital found women who froze their eggs under the age of 36 had a 95% chance of successfully thawing their eggs, while women over that age had an 85% thaw success rate.
A study in the journal Fertility and Sterility found it was more cost-effective for a woman to freeze her eggs at age 35 and use them to get pregnant in her 40s, rather than try to conceive naturally at that age.
According to a study our research team at CFRE recently presented, women under 35 have a 60% chance of freezing enough eggs in one cycle for a high chance at pregnancy later; that drops to 40% for women 35–37 and 9% for women 38–40.
You may still be able to freeze your eggs at age 40
If testing reveals that you have a good ovarian reserve, your fertility specialist may recommend moving forward. Keep in mind that women who freeze their eggs at a younger age have higher rates of pregnancy success.
Women who freeze their eggs at 40 are unlikely to have a successful livebirth. A new study has found that women who freeze their eggs at 40 are unlikely to have a successful livebirth when they come to attempt pregnancy.
Can I freeze my eggs at age 38?
Egg freezing typically works best for those in their 20s to early 30s, and is not usually recommended for women over 38 years.
"Studies suggest that women who freeze their eggs before age 35 have a better chance of a successful pregnancy than those who freeze their eggs after age 35." This is because the more eggs retrieved and frozen, the better the chance of a successful pregnancy.