Due to women's career planning and the postponement of marriage and pregnancy to a later date, egg freezing, which women can resort to when they have difficulty conceiving or cannot conceive, has caused the fertility age to increase. Egg freezing is a procedure that allows women to have babies even at an older age. Egg freezing can be performed in cases where women enter menopause at an early age, undergo cancer treatment, or undergo surgical procedures that require the removal of their ovaries.
How is egg freezing done?
There are some rules for freezing the egg cell. First of all, the egg cell must be ready for fertilization, which is called M2. There is a diamond-shaped nucleus called spindle containing 23 chromosomes in M2. The other 23 chromosomes are outside the cell. These are called polar bodies.
The most important problem in the egg freezing process is the liquid inside the cell. Although the egg cell is the largest cell in the body, it is mostly made up of water. During the freezing process, this liquid turns into ice crystals and causes the organelles inside the cell and the nucleus content that will be dispersed inside the cell during freezing to break down and deteriorate. Therefore, as much water as possible should be removed from the egg before the freezing process. In the egg freezing process, the water inside is removed without damaging the cell with specially prepared liquids. Instead, a special liquid is injected into the cell. This special liquid has a structure similar to the antifreeze used in vehicles and is toxic to the cells. This application will prevent damage that may occur due to crystallization of water during the freezing process, and vitrification, or vitrification, will occur. Two different techniques are used in the egg freezing process. These techniques;
Slow freezing: Egg cells are kept in special freezing liquids and then slowly cooled with a device to freeze. In this application, eggs that are usually slowly cooled to -30 / -35 degrees are immersed in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees. Although the slow freezing technique is successful in sperm and embryo freezing, it is not preferred because it has not been successful enough in egg freezing. Egg freezing is most commonly done with the vitrification technique today.
Rapid freezing (vitrification): This technique, which has been used to freeze sperm and embryos since the past, has been developed and made suitable for egg freezing. In this technique, the egg cell is cooled from room temperature to -186 degrees. This method, which could not be applied in egg freezing in the past, has been developed and started to be done successfully with current applications. The cytoplasm structure of the unfertilized egg, the state of the genetic material in the cytoplasm, and the size of the egg made the application of the procedure difficult. However, with the introduction of new techniques and freezing solutions, the vitrification technique has been made suitable for egg freezing. Therefore, high success rates have been achieved. Although clinics performing egg freezing apply the same technique, they may use different protocols. However, the procedure is ultimately the same.
Who can undergo egg freezing?
It can be applied to women who postpone their desire to become a mother to a later date in order to pursue a career. You can get detailed information from my article titled Who can apply egg freezing?
It is applied to women who will receive heavy treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy used in cancer types. Since there is a possibility that the ovaries may lose their function at the end of the treatment, the eggs or ovarian tissues can be frozen to achieve pregnancy later.
If sperm cannot be obtained from the male partner despite egg collection during IVF treatment, the eggs can be frozen for later use.
If there are no recipients for donor eggs or if there are too many eggs, egg freezing is performed for future use.
In women with poor egg development, eggs are collected and frozen in several sessions. The eggs collected in this way are thawed together to try to obtain an embryo .
How to obtain eggs?
Women are prepared by undergoing some preliminary preparations using various methods. A drug treatment called ovulation induction is applied to ensure egg development. In some cases, eggs are obtained by following the egg development naturally. Egg collection using drug treatment takes approximately 10-15 days. Women use the drugs at home and the egg collection process is carried out within 1 day at the center where the application will be made. Eggs are determined by checking the fluids obtained from the follicles in the eggs under a microscope through the anesthesia applied to the woman. These are rested in an incubator and mature ones are separated and the egg freezing stage is started. Finally, the eggs are immersed in liquid nitrogen and cooled. A high rate of success is achieved with this method called vitrification. Eggs can remain healthy and intact for a very long time. Healthy eggs can be obtained if women stay away from smoking, alcohol and drugs that can impair the quality of the eggs before the egg freezing process.
Does the woman's age matter in egg freezing?
Egg freezing can be done at any time as long as women are producing eggs. However, since the eggs will retain the quality of the time they were frozen, experts recommend that egg freezing be done up until the age of 35. When eggs are frozen, they are healthy for the woman's age. Even at a woman's advanced age, it is possible to have healthy babies with these eggs.
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