In a study conducted in the United Kingdom and Denmark, 89.1 percent of women believe it’s acceptable to freeze your eggs to further your career or wait for the right partner.
973 women of an average age of 31 were surveyed and 83 percent had heard of egg, or oocyte, freezing and 19 percent were actively considering freezing their eggs, according to the Daily Mail.
“Until very recently, no options for preserving fertility in order to delay childbearing existed, but vitrification has revolutionised oocyte freezing and made it effective and convenient,” said Dr. Camille Lallemant and her team at the Princess Anne Hospital’s Complete Fertility Center.
“However, before the launch of this study, we were still not clear to what extent women were aware of its possibilities and limitations, or of attitudes towards its use or the circumstances in which they might consider it.”
Oocyte freezing is still a new concept to women, and there have been fewer than 20 births from the procedure in the United Kingdom by 2012.
“While both our clinics in Southampton and Copenhagen receive many inquiries about options for fertility planning, few women as yet have actually chosen oocyte freezing for this purpose, though we are however seeing growing interest in the technique,” said Lallemant.
The data was presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Munich.