Delaying pregnancy...by freezing your ovaries

Many women have chosen to delay getting pregnant and starting a family in favor of focusing on career in their younger years. In the back of their minds is the idea that if they have trouble getting pregnant later they can always resort to in vitro fertilization. But IVF is not a magic bullet; it is very costly, has only a moderate probability of success, and can be quite physically and emotionally distressing.

There may be a new option on the horizon for those ladies who want ensure they have the option of child bearing in later years - freezing their ovaries. Ovarian tissue freezing, which usually involves removing an ovary and freezing it for later reimplantation, may soon be the method of choice to preserve women's fertility. It has several advantages over other methods, such as mature egg freezing, because it does not require hormonal treatment, is a low-risk outpatient procedure, and could also act as a means of hormonal replacement.

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine believes this rapidly evolving procedure holds great promise, but it is currently only being applied to women who must undergo cancer therapy and fear losing the ability to get pregnant following the treatment.