More Canadians are freezing their eggs. Why and what to know about the process – National | 24CA News
For her twenty fifth birthday this yr, Shania Bhopa gave a present to her future self.
The PhD pupil from Hamilton determined to freeze her eggs as an “insurance policy” to have a child sooner or later as she focuses on her profession proper now.
Bhopa’s objective is to have her first youngster a decade from now, across the age of 35.
“A weight’s been lifted off my shoulder,” stated Bhopa, who underwent the egg-freezing process at Markham Fertility Centre final month.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mum, and I think that’s one of my purposes in life and … I know that’s not my timing right now,” she advised Global News in an interview.
Egg freezing and different fertility remedies are on the rise in Canada, as {couples} delay their plans to have children for quite a lot of causes.
In 2020, the primary yr of the COVID-19 pandemic, the variety of infants born in Canada fell to an almost 15-year low and the fertility price hit a report low of 1.41 youngsters per girl.
And in 2021, near one-quarter (24 per cent) of Canadians aged 15 to 49 modified their fertility plans due to the pandemic, in accordance with Statistics Canada.
Canada is already thought of a “late” childbearing nation and its fertility price, which is an estimate of the common variety of reside births a feminine will be anticipated to have in her lifetime, has dipped during the last decade.
“We have been seeing really since the pandemic started, an increase in the number of women or people with ovaries who are accessing fertility preservation in order to secure their future fertility,” stated Carolynn Dubé, government director with Fertility Matters Canada.
Dubé stated this helps alleviate the strain of a “ticking clock” for ladies who wish to postpone beginning a household to give attention to their skilled life.
“It gives them a greater chance to bring home a baby because their eggs have been frozen … at a younger age,” she stated.
Several years in the past, large tech corporations like Google, Apple and Facebook started paying for feminine workers to freeze their eggs as a technique to appeal to extra younger ladies to their workers.
It’s a rising pattern with some corporations in Canada now additionally providing the freezing of eggs or sperm, as a part of an expanded suite of fertility and household planning advantages.
Dubé stated there’s now an incredible consciousness with extra ladies overtly having conservations on-line about their household planning choices.
“We’re seeing more and more people through social media sharing, and I feel that this younger generation of women especially are really actively seeking information about their health, their reproductive health.”
Women’s fertility begins to say no after the age of 30 and extra considerably once they cross 35.
That is why egg freezing is a route many take, however it comes with a heavy value – roughly $10,000 or extra in Canada for as many eggs as will be retrieved. This contains prices for the remedy and process and an annual storage charge.
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The egg-freezing process is much like the IVF remedy in that the eggs are faraway from a girl’s physique.
After screening, remedy is given to stimulate the ovaries in order that they produce eggs – a course of that may take as much as two weeks, stated Dr. Togas Tulandi, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University in Montreal.
After stimulation, an ultrasound-guided process takes the eggs out for freezing and storing.
Tulandi stated one of the best age to protect eggs is within the 20s and early 30s.
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The longer you postpone, the much less worthwhile it turns into.
“We have requests of patients who want to … preserve the eggs at a later age, but the problem is not just the number of eggs, but the quality of egg is decreased when you are close to 40 or even after 40 especially,” he stated.
Egg freezing can be an “amazing medical option” for younger most cancers sufferers who have to bear remedy that would have an effect on future fertility, Dubé provides.
For Bhopa, who documented her 11-day egg-freezing journey on social media, the entire course of was a “roller-coaster” trip, she says.
The every day remedy injections made her physique “really sore” and she or he stated her ovaries felt like “going from limes to grapefruits” in dimension in her mid-section.
“It’s such a strange sensation,” Bhopa stated.
While egg freezing is taken into account a secure and efficient course of, some ladies could expertise gentle signs like bloating and complications, stated Dubé.
The process may lead to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, when the ovaries turn into enlarged and cysts are shaped as a result of remedy, stated Tulandi.
But this will get higher over time and no surgical procedure is required, he added.
Symptoms of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome embody fatigue, nausea, complications, stomach ache, breast tenderness and irritability, in accordance with an article within the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
There isn’t any expiry date for the frozen eggs, which stay on the identical age they have been initially saved, however many sufferers don’t come again to make use of them.
Shania Bhopa stated her egg-freezing course of took 11 days that felt like a ‘roller-coaster.’.
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Bhopa says when the time comes, she is going to strive having a child naturally for a few months earlier than she goes again to the clinic to make use of her frozen eggs.
“Knowing that my likelihood, especially with my career goals, (that) I can have a happy, healthy baby potentially closer to 35, so that is very refreshing.”
— with recordsdata from The Canadian Press.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
