Egg Freezing with IVF
If you are considering freezing eggs for the future, first of all let me say - I see you. This could be a happy occasion for you but often it's not. It can be a cancer diagnosis or facing getting older and wanting to have kids but waiting for the right time or the right partner. For all of these reasons, choosing to freeze your eggs can be a difficult one. But, with many large employers now paying for you to do just that, many people are choosing to freeze their eggs.
Let's discuss some options to help you prepare for freezing your eggs, use an egg freezing calculator (to determine how many eggs you should shoot for to have the number of children you desire) and we will finish with an excerpt of my book, Planting the Seeds of Pregnancy: An Integrative Approach to Fertility Care.
CoQ10 for Egg Freezing
Improving egg quality is always a good idea when you are going to freeze your eggs for future use. CoQ10 is one of the best supplements we have for improving egg quality.
Here is an excerpt from our book, Planting the Seeds of Pregnancy, An Integrative Approach to Fertility Care. This excerpt talks about how CoQ10 can help improve egg quality through improving mitochondrial function:
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)
This enzyme helps support and improve cellular function (via improved mitochondrial function). Mitochondria is found within the cell and is involved in energy production. It also helps prevent free-radical damage to cell mitochondria, which can cause age-related decline in egg quality (Bentov and Casper, 2013). CoQ10 has also been shown to improve almost all sperm parameters, including density, motility, and morphology (Safarinejad, 2012). A standard dose is 100 – 200 mg a day, but your health care provider may prescribe up to 600 mg a day or more as needed.
In 2017, a study was published showing that increased CoQ10 found in follicular fluid (the fluid around a developing egg) resulted in better embryos (Akarsu et al., 2017). And pre-IVF treatment with CoQ10 improved ovarian response and resulted in better embryo parameters (Xu et al., 2018). The research on supplementing with CoQ10 is coming in and it is looking promising. One article even argues that CoQ10 can help repair oxidative damage done by environmental toxins such as BPA (Hornos Carneiro et al., 2020).
CoQ10 is recommended by many IVF clinics. Always talk to your providers before starting any new supplement.
The Egg Freezer Calculator
The EFCT calculator (Goldman et al., 2017) was created at Harvard University to help people determine how many eggs they should freeze to maximize their chances of their desired outcome. The calculator takes your age and the number of eggs retrieved and gives you a percentage chance of have a live birth - of 1, 2 and 3 children.
Egg Freezing Information from the Book
Here are some good insights that can be found in our book, Planting the Seeds of Pregnancy: An Integrative Approach to Fertility Care:
If you are thinking about egg freezing it is important to consider a few things:
Egg freezing is an empowering option but it is not a guarantee of future success.
Experience matters when choosing a clinic to freeze your eggs. Do your research and ask questions before you decide where to do your cycle(s).
The number of eggs frozen matters so make a plan with your team. As eggs age, fewer of them will result in live birth so the older you are—the more eggs you should freeze.
For example, using the EFCT calculator - a 35 year old woman with 20 mature eggs frozen has a 90% chance of one live birth and a 40 year old woman with 20 mature eggs frozen has a 51% chance of one live birth in the future.
We are here.
The decision to freeze eggs can be a difficult one. That decision has been getting easier to afford for employees of high tech firms, like Amazon, that are now covering egg freezing on their insurance policies. While that is great for these employees, it can remain out of reach for many.
If you are considering freezing your eggs and have questions or want guidance, we are here. We know the in's and out's of egg freezing and can offer you guidance to help you choose the best ways for you to prepare for such an important event.
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Resources:
Goldman, R. H., Racowsky, C., Farland, L. V., Munné, S., Ribustello, L., & Fox, J. H. (2017). Predicting the likelihood of live birth for elective oocyte cryopreservation: a counseling tool for physicians and patients. Human reproduction (Oxford, England), 32(4), 853–859. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dex008
