Women freeze eggs to wait for 'Mr Right'
By Emma Wilkinson,
BBC News
| 06. 28. 2010
A study of women at a Belgian clinic found half wanted to freeze their eggs to take the pressure off finding a partner, a fertility conference heard.
A third were also having eggs frozen as an "insurance policy" against infertility.
Many students would also consider the procedure to focus on a career before motherhood, a separate UK survey found.
The study of nearly 200 students showed eight in 10 doing a medical degree would freeze their eggs to delay starting a family.
Among sports and education students half said they would consider it.
Egg freezing is still a relatively new technology, which enables a woman to save eggs for future IVF treatment if needed.
The chance of success is better with younger, healthier eggs, yet most women currently choosing the procedure are in their late 30s and opting for egg freezing as a "last resort".
The average cost of egg freezing is around £3,000 per attempt and some women may have to undergo up to three cycles in order to preserve a good number of eggs.
Speaking at the European...
Related Articles
By Jennifer Denbow, Guest Contributor
| 10.29.2026
Almost every day I am reminded that we are in the midst of a fertility panic. Whether it’s the Vice President exhorting Americans to have more babies or The New York Times running yet another story about the fertility cliff, fear about falling fertility rates is everywhere. While centrally concerned with declining rates of childbearing, Anna Louie Sussman’s new book, Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty, is a welcome antidote to the panic.
Sussman has written...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New Republic | 10.26.2026
There’s a certain kind of novel that’s not quite apocalyptic enough to be science fiction, but just far-fetched enough to be speculative. No one is from outer space; society has not yet been carved up into a hierarchy of groups...
By Jan Grue, The Guardian | 10.27.2026
For a very long time, I dreamed of being cured. I was born in 1981. I learned to walk early enough, but I stumbled and fell more easily than other children. My parents began to worry that something was wrong...
By staff, We Are Egg Donors | 10.21.2026
Michelle Lambrechts is a police officer and one-time egg donor in Belgium. She is also the founder of Ik Zit Met Een Ei, a Belgian nonprofit that advocates for egg donors. (The name is a Dutch play on words...
