Women freeze eggs to gain time to find the right partners study finds

Women are choosing to freeze their eggs to gain time to find the right partner rather than to pursue their careers, new research suggests.

Based on interviews with 31 heterosexual women who had frozen their eggs for non-medical reasons, researchers discovered that the greatest motivation was because the women said they had not found the right man to father their child.

“Women weren’t engaging with technology for their career, they didn’t necessarily seek to delay, [or] put off motherhood, but it was very much more about they wanted to pursue motherhood at the right time, in the right way, with this right partner,” said lead researcher Kylie Baldwin, of the ReproductionResearch group at the UK’s De Montfort University.

“Women’s use of this technology is often driven by their relationships with men,” said Baldwin. “Instead of it being focused on egg freezing being a women’s concern, I think it needs to be broadened - I think men need to be brought into the picture more and there needs to be a more well-rounded understanding about why women engage with this technology.”

Emily Jackson, professor of law at the London School of Economics and a specialist in reproductive issues, said that despite coming from a small sample of women the findings were consistent with reports from the limited number of other studies available.

“[The findings don’t] mean [egg freezing] is not entirely unrelated to work, in the sense that the reason why one might find oneself 38 and single might have something to do with what career conditions were like in one’s 20s,” she said.

Egg freezing technology has taken off in the past five years or so, with increasing availability of a new approach, called vitrification, that has boosted success rates of conception.

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Tim Child, the medical director of the Oxford Fertility Unit, said that the findings chimed with his experience. “The majority of egg freezing requests are because someone wants to preserve their fertility so they feel as though if it is a few years before they meet the person they want to have a child with, and perhaps their fertility has declined to an extent where that might be more difficult to happen, at least they have got some fertility frozen in time,” he said.

Child also says that the sample size does not undermine the results. “You can base such studies on quite small numbers if the studies are conducted to a high standard.”

While the proportion of women freezing their eggs is still low, numbers are growing. According to the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), 816 British women underwent treatment to freeze their eggs in 2014, compared to 652 women in 2013. The approximate rate of live births using frozen eggs, based on those thawed in 2013, was 14%. Although, the report notes, “The success rate is affected by the age of the woman at the time her eggs were frozen and was considerably lower for women in the older age group.”

While the HFEA does not record detailed information on why the women chose to freeze their eggs, or the proportion who did so for medical reasons, in 2014 54.1% of those aged over 38 cited having no male partner as a reason, compared to 36.4% of those under the age of 38.

To delve into the issue, Baldwin interviewed women from the UK, US and Norway, recruited from advertisements, who said they had undergone egg freezing for non-medical reasons. Aged between 32 and 44 years old, all had been educated to degree level, with almost 40% having a postgraduate degree - a demographic typical of women who undertake such treatment, says Baldwin.

Baldwin says her results, which were presented at the British Science Festival on Wednesday, reveal that the primary reason why the women had opted to freeze their eggs was because they had yet to meet Mr Right.

“It wasn’t just about finding the right man, it was about finding the right potential father for their child,” she said. “They very much wanted to parent with their male partner who was committed to parenthood, who was going to perform that role of the hands-on father and would share the role of upbringing, the pleasures and pains of upbringing, equally.”

Other reasons, such as job instability or housing-related issues were also mentioned, says Baldwin, with 20% reporting an underlying health condition that contributed to their choice.

While several companies, including Apple and Facebook, offer egg freezing for female employees, Baldwin says she is not convinced by the approach. “Some of that use of egg freezing technology is often trying to solve the problem of older motherhood by not addressing the root cause, and the cause in many cases is this lack of a partner, lack of job security, not the desire to climb the career ladder,” she said.

With 37 as the average age of participants, the research reveals that women are leaving it until later in life to freeze their eggs, despite the decline in egg quality with age, says Baldwin. “Women need to be engaging with this technology for it to be the most effective before the age of 35, or perhaps even earlier,” she said.

But as Jackson points out, there are other considerations. Women in their early thirties still have a good chance of a natural pregnancy, she says, meaning that freezing eggs in their twenties could be an unnecessary invasive and expensive procedure. What’s more, in the absence of special circumstances, current legislation only allows eggs to be frozen for a maximum of 10 years. “The 10 year time limit means that in a sense it is not sensible to freeze them early, even thought that might be clinically sensible, because they won’t be available to you [later],” she said.

Baldwin also warns that the idea of egg freezing should not be presented to women as a quick fix. Cheryl Fitzgerald, Consultant in Reproductive Medicine at Old St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, agrees. “I think seeing egg freezing as an option when it is things like you haven’t got your house or your haven’t got your job sorted is a really, really bad message because the majority of those women will then not end up with a baby,” she said. 

“Egg freezing is obviously great for those women who have no other option, but I think it shouldn’t be something that women resort to at an early stage. I think society needs to change and facilitate women to have their babies when they are younger.”

While Fitzgerald stresses that it is up to individuals to decide whether or not to freeze their eggs, she warns against the idea of viewing the technology as a simple solution.

“I think it is quite dangerous to start suggesting that, by medicalising a social problem, we can cure it,” she said. “If you’ve not met your partner, you’ve not met your partner, but I think it is a really bad message to give out that actually now we can get round this by egg freezing, because the majority of those women will still not have a baby.”

Episona unveils first innovative new male fertility test at ASRM 2016

Episona Inc., an epigenetics data company focused on improving outcomes in reproductive health, announced today the launch of Seed, an innovative new male fertility test, at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Scientific Congress& Expo. Seedis the first product on the market to evaluate epigenetic changes on DNA to predict the risk for male factorinfertility and poor embryo development, offering physicians and their patients a valuable new tool for personalizing fertility treatment and increasing the chances of pregnancy sooner and more cost effectively. 

"Physicians have long relied on the traditional semen analysis as the sole option for determining the male's role in fertility," said Episona President and CEO Alan Horsager,Ph.D. "While semen analyses provide valuable information on sperm count, motility and morphology, they offer little insight into the more complex factors related to male fertility or into the male's role in embryo development. By combining the latest advances in science and technology, Seed provides patientswith previously missing information about their fertility and we believe this has the potential to transform fertility care."

Seed is a physician-ordered test offered in a simple fertility kit for use at home or in a fertility clinic. Samples are sent to a CLIA-certified lab for analysis. Within two weeks physicians receive a detailed two-part interactive report on the patient’s risk of male factor infertility and poor embryo development. Male factor risk can help identify the severity of a patient’s case, helping both the physician and patient understand whether they should spend time and money pursing less invasive procedures such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) or move directly to in vitro fertilization (IVF). By analyzing sperm’s role in embryo development, Seed results can help identify problems that might occur with IVF and provide some answers if an IVF cycle fails or, in the case of seeking a donor, whether a male or female donor would be preferred.

"Male factors contribute to about half of the cases of infertility in couples, yet testingoptions for men have been woefully lacking. What's more, about a quarter of infertility cases are unexplainable," said Dr. Richard T. Scott, Jr., a founding partner at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, and an Episona scientific advisory board member. "Seed has the potential to provide my patients with the information needed to better guide their course of treatment. I look forward to bringing this new test to my practice and to helping my patients become pregnant sooner."

Seed's novel approach is based on the science of epigenetics. Epigenetics examines external or environmental factors such as aging, smoking, obesity, environmental exposure or even exercise thatcan cause changes to the layer on top of the DNA known as the epigenome. These modifications to the DNA alter how genes are expressed, or read, which in turn can impact how genes function. Episona focuses specifically on DNA methylationon the epigenome by looking at the differences in methylation between known fertile sperm DNA and infertile sperm DNA. Using microarrays from Illumina Inc., Seed examines over 480,000 regions on sperm DNA for abnormal methylation at different gene sites important to fertility. A relative risk is then assigned to each abnormal location for either male factor infertility or poor embryo development.

"The Seed test uses epigenetics, which allows us to look much more deeply at potential problems associated with impaired fertility in men,”said Dr. Paul Turek, an internationally known leader in men’s reproductive health and an Episona's scientific advisory board member.

Episona has evaluated Seed in two clinical studies, with both demonstrating clear correlations between epigenetic abnormalities and male factor infertility. The first was a retrospective study involving 127 IVF patients and 36 known-fertile controls. The results of this study were published in Fertility & Sterility in August 2015. The second study was prospective and involved more than 200 patients from multiple clinical centers and 96 know-fertile controls. Episona intends to submit these study results for publication in a peer-reviewed journal early next year.

Seed, Episona's first commercial product, is initially being launched in the United States as a laboratory-developed test. Episona estimates there are more than 1.2 million couples seeking fertility care each year in the United States alone. The worldwide fertility market is estimated at $30-40 billion by Harris Williams & Co.

Spanish doctor gives birth to her third child at 62 despite doctors telling her fertility treatment wouldn't work

A 62-year-old woman who announced she was eight months pregnant with her third child last month has given birth to a healthy girl.

Lina Alvarez's daughter - who she has given the same first name - was delivered by Caeserean section yesterday.

She was born two weeks ahead of schedule after the Spanish doctor was admitted to hospital with high blood pressure.

The mother-of-three, from Lugo, north-west Spain, began the menopause 20 years ago but underwent fertility treatment in the hope of having more children.

Her pregnancy sparked a heated debate in her native country and prompted calls for an age limit for seeking IVF.

But she shrugged off the criticism and gave birth to her daughter who weighed 5.2lbs.

She said: 'I'm the happiest person on the planet. Everything went perfectly.

'When she is 30 I'll be 90. She'll have been raised and life expectancy for women is growing all the time.

'I always wanted to be a mother again but most medical experts said "no".'

Ms Alvarez added: 'Then some years ago I met a gynaecologist who agreed to help me if the tests were okay. 

'They were positive and so he helped me to implant an embryo.

'They said there was only a six per cent chance of success but I got pregnant with a baby girl. 

'I feel like I’m having a second chance and the pregnancy has made me younger and stronger.'

Her eldest son, Exiquio, 28, who is disabled after a medical error left him injured during her pregnancy, has already met his baby sister.

His condition was caused when a gynaecologist damaged his head during a routine test, which also led to the breakdown of her marriage.

He requires constant care and she is her son's primary carer.

Ms Alvarez had her second child 10 years after her menopause at the age of 52 thanks to IVF treatment.

Samuel, 10, told a local paper: 'I'm looking forward to resting for at least a couple of days now so I can enjoy time with my sister and recover.

'My emotions have got the better of me and I've been crying a lot out of happiness.'

She ended up having to travel to Madrid to see a gynaecologist after many clinics refused to help her because of her age when she decided she wanted a third baby.

They revealed there was only a six per cent chance of success but she became pregnant with a baby girl shortly after. 

The world's oldest documented mother is Daljinder Kaur from India, who gave birth last year at the age of 70 after two years of IVF treatment. Baby Armaan was born weighing 4.4lbs.

While Britain's oldest mum is Elizabeth Adeney, from Suffolk, who had a son aged 66 in 2009 after travelling to Ukraine for treatment.  

"REPRODUCTION IN MICE WITHOUT USING EGGS"?

"Reproduction in mice without using eggs": this has been achieved by a team comprising scientists from Bath University in the United Kingdom, and Regensberg University in Germany. A general announcement has been made, "fuelling the imagination to the realms of speculation and fantasy": for Anthony C. F. Perry, this study paves the way for using human somatic cells (skin cells, for instance) to "fertilise them in vitro after chemical treatment to produce an embryo and then simply to ensure pregnancy and birth. Two men (even one man on his own) could therefore procreate – nevertheless with the assistance of a surrogate mother (prior to the development of an artificial uterus)".

For the time being, the study, which was published in the Nature journal on 13 September, is focusing on mice. "Until now, it was believed that sexual reproduction involving two gametes  - one female and one male - was the only way to create a living organism. Toru Suzuki's team "has shown for the first time that, in mice, a unique individual can be created from embryos and sperm without using eggs". To do this, scientists "have used murine ‘embryos’ at a very early developmental stage(…), which have undergone chemical treatment to activate cell division so that they possess only one set of chromosomes and therefore only half of the genetic material", i.e. parthenotes. A sperm was injected into these parthenotes, "as for in-vitro fertilisation", to provide the other half of the genetic material. Then, following the implantation of these fused cells into the surrogate mice,"scientists obtained apparently healthy baby mice in 25% of cases". This is deemed to be a"considerable" yield for this technique.

Scientists acknowledge the fact that these results "blur functional distinctions between sexual, embryo and somatic [adult] cell lines" .  They are considering using this approach "to create offspring more easily in animal species on the brink of extinction".

The authors also emphasise the fact that "the confirmation that parthenotes do not have the potential to develop to produce an individual and that this can therefore be viewed as a more acceptable source of human stem cells as opposed to embryos, could be challenged", if the technique worked in humans.

For Jean-Yves Nau, this is the "last stage in an on-going biological revolution" : "there is nothing (except ethics) that prohibits the same leap in the human species to more of an extent". He also believes that these studies "are a new step towards transmissible genetic modifications from the gene pool of various species including humans".

Cloning artificially creates a new organism, "but in this case, the gene pool is identical to that of the individual providing that one cell".