There are some situations in which preserving fertility becomes an important option to take into account. Treatments for cancer and time are factors that significantly affect the reproductive capacity of people. Find out what can be done in these cases.
Fertility Preservation in cancer
When you are diagnosed with cancer the first thing you think about is how I can be treated to achieve a cure. Advances in chemotherapy and radiation therapy today may save your life but unfortunately can cause infertility by affecting the production of spermatozoa in man and the survival of eggs in women.
If you are diagnosed with cancer and want children in the future it is possible to preserve fertility by freezing and storing sperm in man and eggs in the woman before being treated.
Your sperm or egg will be available when your treatment ends and it is determined by your oncologist that it is safe for you to seek a pregnancy.
Preservation of fertility for personal reasons
Biologically it is easier to become pregnant before the age of 30. But if for professional or social reasons the woman is not ready to become pregnant at that moment and wishes to postpone her maternity, freezing the eggs is a very good alternative to counteract the effect of age on her reproductive capacity.
With the age, the quantity and quality of eggs decrease affecting the capacity of pregnancy in the woman. Egg freezing is a way to preserve their fertility over time as the eggs will retain the quality they had at the time of being frozen regardless of their age is advancing.
The eggs are frozen with the system of “vitrification” or rapid freezing that has allowed an advance in the survival of both eggs and embryos thus increasing the chances of pregnancy.
To increase the efficiency of the process it is necessary to stimulate the ovaries in the way that is done for an in vitro fertilization treatment. Once the eggs are obtained these are analyzed in the laboratory in order to determine which are mature and suitable for vitrification.
Freezing the eggs does not guarantee that you will have a baby. The reproductive function of the human being is very inefficient, this explains why the possibility of natural pregnancy during the fertile stage is only 10% to 20% depending on the age and many couples require up to a year to achieve a pregnancy. To have an acceptable chance of pregnancy with frozen eggs, you may require between 15 and 20 frozen mature eggs if you make them before age 37, but 25 to 30 mature eggs if you do at that age or later.