Egg freezing time limit…time for a change

Sarah Norcross, director of fertility and genetics charity, Progress Educational Trust recently raised the important issue of the unjust state of the law on time limits for egg-freezing.

What’s the issue?

If you undergo fertility treatment to freeze your own eggs (other than for medical reasons) you have to either use them for IVF within ten years or they will be destroyed. The problem is that this forces women into making a very difficult and unnecessary choice. Eggs frozen by younger women are more likely to result in a viable pregnancy but freezing earlier means that the ten year window could close before a woman is ready to have a baby.

The time limit was set almost 30 years ago when fertility treatment was less well-developed scientifically and less “normalised” within our culture and it needs to be reviewed. Many more women are undergoing egg-freezing treatment cycles: 1,463 cycles in 2017 compared with only 234 in 2010. The number of people affected by the time limit is only going to increase.

Read the full article here.