Trying For A Baby

When Is The Best Time For A Couple To Conceive or look at IVF In Trying For A Family?

Ages 25 - 34. This decade seems to offer the best compromise between educational and fertility aspirations. Clearly, this is neither appropriate nor opportune for all women but gives some guidance for those who have a choice.

So What Can Women Do If This Is Not The Right Time For Personal, Social Or Academic Reasons?

Well, that's where egg freezing comes in. Women have to go through the IVF process and have their eggs collected as if they were having treatment. Instead of the eggs being fertilised, they are snap frozen and can be stored for several years. When they are defrosted, they can be inseminated with the current partner's sperm and the resultant embryos replaced as they are in conventional IVF.

Social egg freezing is not only increasingly in popularity but has also become more successful, with 80% of eggs now surviving the freeze-thaw process. The eggs maintain the quality they had when they were frozen and so reflect the age of the woman at that time.

IVF and egg-freezing are not suitable for all women, however. Some women have limited egg reserves and can only produce poor quality eggs and therefore poor quality embryos. It's too late to freeze eggs, and the best option for these women is to have an egg from another woman, an egg donor.

Women having treatment with donated eggs maintain the higher pregnancy rate seen in younger women (30-35%) because to be an egg donor, you must be under 36 years of age. Women receiving donated eggs also have a much lower risk of miscarriage, highlighting that it is the egg and not the womb that is the primary problem.

Source: Independent UK