Technically, there is no time limit on egg freezing. Most clinics will try to work with the patient. However, some clinics prefer to stop egg freezing at particular ages, especially over 42. There will be too few quality eggs at this point.
Egg freezing typically works best for women in their 20s to 30s, and is not generally recommended for women older than 38 years. The biological clock cannot be reversed by oocyte cryopreservation in women older than 40.
Deciding how many eggs to freeze
Women under 35 should freeze 20 mature eggs for an 85% chance of having at least one child. Women 38 to 40 should freeze 30 mature eggs for a 75% chance of having at least one child. Women 40 to 42 should freeze 30 mature eggs for a 50% chance of having at least one child.
“Freezing eggs after the age of 40 is not typically recommended but may be considered on a case-by-case basis,” says Cross.
To ensure healthy and viable eggs, some fertility experts suggest limiting elective egg freezing to women age 38 and under.
When the procedure is performed above this age, the chances of successful livebirth are significantly reduced. Previous research and advice has recommended that women should freeze their eggs before the age of 35, with emphasis placed on the number of good eggs successfully frozen.
Egg freezing has no impact on the age of menopause. Overall, the risk of complications from the procedure is less than 2%. Therefore, assuming no complications, the process of ovarian stimulation and egg harvesting should have no long-term effects.
How Many Eggs Does a Woman Have at 40? After the rapid decline in egg count starting around age 37, by the time a woman hits 40, their ovarian reserve is often estimated to be around 5-10,000.
Across all ages, women who thawed more than 20 mature eggs had a 58 percent live birth rate, which was profound and unexpected as this group included people past their reproductive prime. In fact, 14 patients who froze eggs at the age of 41 to 43 years successfully had children from their frozen eggs.
Your age affects the health of your eggs. Women reach the peak of their fertility at around age 24. After this age, egg quality slowly deteriorates until around age 37, and then deteriorates more rapidly until about age 42. After roughly age 42, fertility for most women basically falls off a cliff.
How many eggs does a woman have at 40? By the time a woman reaches 40, she'll be down to about 18,000 (3% of her pre-birth egg supply).
Medicare and egg freezing
If you freeze your eggs for medical reasons, because your fertility is compromised, the procedure is covered under Medicare. If it is for an elective purpose, it is not covered by Medicare.
In fact, according to 2019 preliminary data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology's national summary report, the live birth rate among women aged 41 to 42 after an IVF cycle is 10%; after the age of 43, it drops to 3%. For families desperate to have a baby of their own, IVF can be a game changer.
IVF isn't usually recommended for women over the age of 42 because the chances of a successful pregnancy are thought to be too low. In 2019, the percentage of IVF treatments that resulted in a live birth was: 32% for women under 35.
However, women have a much lower chance of conceiving naturally after 40 than earlier in their reproductive years. Fertility specialists quote approximately a 5% chance per menstrual cycle of getting pregnant naturally after age 40 vs.
Women are born with all the eggs they are ever going to have, and they don't make any new eggs during their lifetime. Women are born with approximately two million eggs in their ovaries, but about eleven thousand of them die every month prior to puberty.
By 40, less than half of a woman's eggs are considered normal. Egg quality is largely determined by the ovarian environment that the eggs spend their final 90 days of development in; women in their 40s generally have a poor ovarian environment for producing high-quality eggs.
Once she starts her periods, 1 egg develops and is released during each menstrual cycle. Pregnancy happens if a man's sperm meet and fertilise the egg. Sperm can survive in the fallopian tubes for up to 7 days after sex. Occasionally, more than 1 egg is released during ovulation.
Eat a balanced, nutritious diet, lose weight if you are overweight, and take a prenatal vitamin that has at least 400 micrograms of folic acid. You should have a full medical exam before you become pregnant. Tell your doctor that you are planning to become pregnant and ask about potential health risks.
A woman's peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline becomes more rapid once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely for most women.
Short answer: no, egg freezing won't lower your ovarian reserve and won't decrease your chances of getting pregnancy naturally in the future. To understand why, let's quickly go over the ovulation process. During each menstrual cycle—typically each month—one egg makes it through the whole ovulatory process.
Absolutely not. There is a persistent rumor that undergoing IVF or other fertility treatments can bring on an early menopause.
How about in the long term? We can be fairly certain that, even if stress may impact ovulation or implantation for women trying to conceive now, stress doesn't affect fertility or egg health in the long term.