Social cryopreservation
Waiting, however, could become a problem in the long run. Because we must always remember that over the years, the number of oocytes in the ovaries declines due to a natural process. The maximum number of oocytes (6-7 million) is present in the female fetus around the 20th week of gestation. Already at birth, however, the girl has a much lower quantity of oocytes (1-2 million), a quantity that will become 300/5000 thousand at puberty, 25 thousand at the age of 37, and finally only 1,000 oocytes at the age of 37. age of 51 years. It is therefore possible to resort to cryopreservation of eggs, which in Italy is carried out in public health facilities only for patients at risk of premature menopause for health reasons. In this case it is a question of women or girls suffering from diseases such as cancers, endometriosis, recurrent ovarian cysts whose therapies can lead to infertility.
The late search for pregnancy has become a social problem in modern society and is at the origin of many of the reproductive problems encountered in the field of assisted reproduction. In fact, a woman's fertility progressively decreases with advancing age as the oocyte patrimony of each woman is already determined at birth and over the years there is a progressive impoverishment of the number of oocytes remaining and a progressive decay of their quality which results in in increasing difficulty over the years of getting pregnant and carrying them to term. For this reason today, based on the experience obtained with assisted procreation in the field of oocyte cryopreservation and on the experiences of long-term preservation of oocytes in patients whose future fertility was compromised by tumors and chemotherapy, the possibility of preserving their own oocytes at a young age in order to afford to postpone motherhood by overcoming future fertility problems related to aging. This type of intervention is called "social freezing" in Anglo-Saxon countries, ie freezing and storage of oocytes for social reasons.
How does the process work? Hormonal stimulation is carried out to lead the ovary to lay about ten eggs. It is not enough to freeze an egg to have a child, the guarantee is given with 20. Then the eggs are taken from the ovaries with a syringe under local anesthesia and freeze. Otherwise, ovarian tissue can also be frozen to be self-transplanted once the disease is cured. In analogy with what happens in in vitro fertilization, the patient is first subjected to hormonal stimulation which consists in the daily self-administration of hormones to induce the growth of an adequate number of follicles and therefore the maturation of a number of eggs considered sufficient to the intervention. After about 10 - 15 days of therapy, under local anesthesia and on an outpatient basis without the need for hospitalization, like patients undergoing in vitro fertilization, the oocytes are collected and analyzed and cryopreserved.
Eggs can be frozen indefinitely. The most innovative technique is vitrification: with freezing the water becomes glass instead of ice and causes less damage to the eggs.
But beware: from the age of 50, pregnancy can be life-threatening for a woman. However, it is better to choose to do it first. But, considering that after 35, fertility drops sharply and after 44 it is zero, it is a way to postpone it.
To use it, it is essential to contact specialized centers for assisted fertilization. As for social freezing, usually only private ones do it.
