Social oocyte freezing

Reproductive aging has become an important social and medical development. the trend to delay childbearing in modern societies to a much less fecund age often confronts women with difficulties to conceive. the aging of the ovary resulting in a decline in the total number of oocytes and in their quality cannot be undone. However, it often engenders unrealistic expectations of what modern fertility treatment and particularly assisted conception can achieve. Reversing the trend to having pregnancies at a younger age may be facilitated by social initiatives or reproductive health awareness campaigns (nargund, 2009). both preventive strategies aim to encourage more natural births. However, the factors that determine when women start having children such as lifestyle, educational opportunities, career choices and new unions are hard to change (Chen and Morgan, 1991; Gustafsson, 2001). in the developed world, these factors tend to postpone a first pregnancy and will eventually reduce the total number of children women have. An emerging preventive solution for women is to freeze oocytes at a younger age for later use. the first human pregnancy after oocyte cryopreservation was reported by Chen in 1986. Oocyte cryopreservation had relatively low success rates in the past but with the introduction of the vitrification technique, pregnancy outcomes to date have been encouraging (Kuleshova et al., 1999). Reportedly, oocytes preserved using vitrification have a more than 90% survival rate per oocyte after warming and a 75% fertilization rate (Oktay et al., 2006; Gook and Edgar, 2007). Some iVF units report success rates with oocyte cryopreservation that approach those for fresh oocytes and frozen embryos (nagy et al., 2009). this reported success of the use of oocyte vitrification should stimulate a renewed debate on oocyte storage for fertility preservation without a medical indication. this article aims to critically evaluate the medical and societal aspects of social oocyte freezing. the potentials and the limits of this new phenomenon are reviewed as several fertility centers are currently offering oocyte cryopreservation to healthy women or plan so in the near future.