Currently, women that freeze and store their eggs in the UK must use them infertility treatment within a 10-year time frame or their eggs are destroyed. This puts many women at a great disadvantage if they plan to have children later in life for whatever reason. If they have frozen their eggs in their 20s and stored them in the UK, they are restricted to a 10-year window. This puts a huge amount of pressure on women who may not want to have a baby until they reach their late 30s to their early 40s, which is becoming an increasingly popular choice for many women.
Unlike in the UK, there is no time limit for how long women can keep their eggs frozen if they travel to the Ilaya Clinic in the Ukraine.
Dr Inna, a gynaecologist and fertility specialist at the clinic says of the Ilaya clinic says: ‘By freezing their eggs women are freed from the pressure of their biological clock, especially if they have frozen healthy eggs in their twenties. We understand that for some women ten years is not enough and it must be devastating to have to destroy your eggs after 10 years if they have been stored in the UK if they are not ready to have a baby.
‘At the time of freezing many women might have thought that by their mid-30s they would be ready to have a baby, but often, for various reasons, they are not. That’s why we have no time limit at the Ilaya clinic on how long a woman can freeze her eggs. It takes off a lot of pressure, especially if she has a busy career or just hasn’t met Mr Right yet or doesn’t want a Mr Right and wants to have a baby on her own or with a same-sex partner.’
The Ilaya cryobank specialises in the storage of biomaterial of their patients. After cryopreservation, biomaterial (such as oocytes, sperm, embryos, and umbilical cord blood) can be stored for years in Ilaya’s cryobank. This reproductive medicine technique is complex and requires timely and careful preparation by a team of medical professionals and experts infertility.
Services available at the ilaya clinic include egg and sperm donation for IVF, egg and sperm donation, programmes (if required), egg retrieval, IVF: fertilisation and cultivation, fertilisation and cultivation, frozen embryo transfers, IVF pregnancy up to 12 weeks, management of early pregnancy up to 12 weeks, cryobank for IVF, cryobank and the storage of biomaterials and embryos.
The most common age for women to freeze their eggs in the UK is 38 and after ten years, they must be used in fertility treatment or be destroyed. The only exceptions are for cancer patients and prematurely infertile women, who are allowed to keep their eggs for up to 55 years.
The number of women freezing their eggs has increased by 257% since 2012, with 1,462 egg-freezing cycles in 2017 compared with 410 in 2012. Freezing technologies have recently become more advanced.
The practice of egg freezing is becoming more popular. Treatment cycles with frozen eggs rose from 410 in 2012 to 1,462 in 2017. Campaigners and fertility experts say that forcing women to use eggs within ten years is ‘arbitrary’ and has no scientific basis.
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