5 interesting facts about freezing your eggs, as told by fertility doctors!

Typically when you think of doctors, you would think about them saving lives. However, amidst growing infertility concerns, some of the doctors over at TMC Fertility @ Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara are focused towards preserving life through fertility preservation itself, which they shared at a recent panel talk with some of their in-house specialists.

The panel talk included the expertise of:

• Dr Aldrin Lie Tze Min (Medical Director, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, Fertility Specialist)
• Dr Khairun Marina binti Bachok (Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, Fertility Specialist)
• Prof. Dr Prasanna Supramaniam (Associate Professor, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, Fertility Specialist, Subspecialist in Reproductive Medicine, Minimally Invasive Gynaecological Surgeon)
• Tee Sze Tian (Group Chief Embryologist).

So, here’s some of the most interesting facts we learned about fertility preservation during the talk…

1. Egg quality > Egg quantity

Most people think that the number of eggs that someone has would be the strongest determinant of success when it comes to conceiving. However, we were intrigued to find out that another equally important factor is the condition of the eggs themselves. Not all eggs are necessarily healthy, and some eggs can have abnormalities – which can result in miscarriages and even genetic disorders like Down Syndrome.

According to the experts, one of the biggest factors of egg quality is still age, which typically reduces from the age of 35 years and older. As such, cryopreservation (a.k.a. freezing your eggs) is used to preserve the quality of the eggs, so that women who may want to have the option to bear children at a later stage would have better quality eggs and higher chances of a pregnancy… as long as they were to preserve their eggs while at a younger age.

“Fertility preservation allows women to have a little bit more control in terms of their fertility. Women can now they have control over when would be the best time for them to actually have children. In the past, we never had this opportunity.” – Dr. Aldrin

Now, you might think that freezing the eggs merely slows down the process, and that you would still need to take them out within a certain period of time before it “goes bad”. However, we were quite shocked to find out that…

2. Eggs frozen for fertility preservation could LAST FOREVER

That’s right. If you were to freeze your eggs at 18 years of age and take them out 20 years later, the age of the eggs would be still be as when you first froze them! According to Tee Sze Tian (chief embryologist), once any sperm cells, eggs, or embryos, are frozen, they can basically stay there forever. Which means they theoretically could last an ETERNITY, with proper care and an uninterrupted supply of liquid nitrogen, of course.

This is because of the extremely cold temperatures in the cryopreservation tanks which they use to store the samples, which basically freezes them in time. As such, the duration of time within which the samples are frozen doesn’t affect their viability whatsoever. In fact, she also shared that the longest storage time for one of the embryos in the center was 15 years, whereby it was taken out after being frozen for 15 years… and eventually developed into a little girl.

“She’s jumping around now. She came back after around three months to take some pictures with me. We like to celebrate all these success stories at TMC.” –  Tee Sze Tian

Speaking of freezing samples, we learned that…

3. Cryopreservation doesn’t just involve freezing eggs… but also sperm!

Conceiving isn’t just always on the mother. Just like a relationship – it’s a two-way street, whereby both the potential mother and father are taken into account to ensure success. However, it is often overlooked, even though there is a chance that sperm count could be on the decline.

“Male fertility actually is slightly overlooked in the sense of fertility preservation. Process wise, it’s actually quite simple – sperm samples are frozen, and then taken out to be used for IVF.

However, the question of whether men should be worried about fertility preservation is still unanswered. Though, there are multiple large published data sets that show a gradual decline in semen parameters in males. So we are seeing more and more men with poor sperm parameters when they come for IVF. And it’s not just a worrying issue in Malaysia, but internationally as well.” – Dr Prasanna Supramaniam

And while fertility preservation is often linked to IVF for older individuals looking to reproduce at a later time, we found out that it doesn’t just stop there.

4. Many breast cancer patients also undergo fertility preservation

According to the experts, while it is more prevalent amongst older individuals who may want to have the option to have children at a later date, it could also apply to individuals undergoing cancer treatment who want to have children in the future, as reproductive organs can be susceptible to damage from chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

However, the procedures would need to be done before any form of treatment is done.

“A lot of our patients are breast cancer survivors. Basically, we would get a referral from either the breast surgeon or the oncologist, whereby they would assess if it would be safe to give us time to stimulate the eggs.

If so, we would then conduct the stimulation somewhere around 2 weeks, or as soon as possible so that we can save time for them to go through their oncological treatment. After stimulating the eggs, we would fertilize them and freeze them for later.

After the patient has been cancer-free for at least two years, and the oncologist in-charge has given us the green light, then we can plan for the embryo transfer to start the pregnancy.” – Dr. Marina

So, now we understand that fertility preservation can be used for both older individuals and cancer patients to have the option to reproduce children. However, we never thought that fertility preservation could even be used to slow down aging, through…

5. It could even potentially be used to delay menopause

If there’s one thing that many women in their middle-age are dreading… it’s going through menopause. And though this is something that would probably open happen in the future, we found out that scientists are now looking to delay menopause through fertility preservation… by removing your ovaries.

“So the idea is to freeze a little bit of your ovaries sometime back when you’re still young. And then when you’re approaching menopause, we put it back so that hopefully that it can delay the entire process for about 15 years, or at least relieve some of the symptoms.” – Tee Sze Tian

And because age plays one of the biggest factors in preserving your fertility, the panelists recommended that individuals go for a fertility check early – not just right before they decide to have a child. As such, TMC Fertility @ Thomson Hospital is now offering you a chance to see if fertility preservation might be right for you. Here’s how:

Enjoy a free 15-minute consultation with the specialists at TMC Fertility!

Signing up for a fertility preservation package could end up being quite a costly decision. Especially if you’re still pretty young and not looking to start a family right away, it could be a decision that’s saved for later. However, having an understanding of your potential individual fertility levels can always be helpful, especially if you know that you would eventually want to start a family of your own in the future.

As such, TMC Fertility @ Thomson Hospital is now offering a FREE 15-minute consultation with their fertility experts, to help you decide if signing up for a package would be right for you at this point in time- as well as provide you with a chance to ask them any questions that you have on your mind regarding what fertility preservation can do for you. They will also be offering a limited-time special promotion for egg freezing.

For more details on this, you can check out their website at www.tmcfertility.com, or call to book an appointment at +6016 211 1357 or +6018 211 1088.