What is SOCIAL EGG FREEZING?
Women today are choosing to have children later in life than ever before. Egg freezing can enable a woman to delay pregnancy until a later stage.
Who should choose Social Egg Freezing?
Some companies, even fund egg-freezing for female employees who wish to delay childbirth for professional reasons.
As a woman grows older, the quality of her eggs tends to decline.
The eggs may contain more chromosomal abnormalities, and women will no longer ovulate after menopause. This means that her ovaries will cease to release eggs.
If a woman wants a child but is not able or ready to conceive at the present time, a dedicated facility can freeze her eggs for use at a later date.
Steps will be common in both: Social egg freezing & Therapeutic egg freezing.
STEPS OF EGG FREEZING
Step1: CONSULTATION
Before beginning the egg-freezing process, counselling of patient is done and screening blood test is advised like AMH (anti mullerian hormone) and viral markers (HIV, HBSAG, HCV, VDRL).
Step 2: STIMULATION
During a normal menstrual cycle only one follicle is produced by ovaries but since we want to preserve as many eggs as possible. Ovaries are stimulated with injections to produce multiple eggs. These are used in conjunction with drugs like antagonist for proper regulation of the cycle.
Step 3: FOLLICULAR STUDY
These scans are done regularly to assess follicular development. The size of the follicles indicates the degree of egg maturity, usually 10-15 follicles will develops in the ovaries during standard stimulation protocol.
Step 4: EGG RETRIEVAL
All the instructions prior to the oocytes retrieval or egg pickup will be given on the day women receives trigger injection. The trigger injection is usually given late evening or in the night so as to schedule the pickup in morning around 34-36 hrs later. Aspiration of ovarian follicles under anaesthesia is done in OT adjacent to the IVF laboratory. This is done by trans-vaginal ultrasound technique. For this procedure a probe is inserted in to vagina and this project a picture into a monitor which enables the doctor to direct a needle into each follicle to retrieve the eggs. The fluid filled follicles are aspirated under slight suction in a test tube which is passed on to the embryologist.
Step 5: EGG FREEZING
The embryologist locates the Egg and places them into culture media and then into the incubator. After the procedure the women will have to rest in hospital for 3-4 hours. It is a day care procedure.
