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For her new book Motherhood on the Ice: Mating gaps and why women freeze eggs, Professor Marcia C. In-Hong of Yale University spoke with more than 150 women who pursued freezing eggs. I chatted this week on Inhorn about how popular culture is right and wrong about women freezing eggs. Below are some of the conversations edited for clarity and length.
reason: When did egg freeze begin to be considered an effective technique?
Inhorn: It took up to the first decade of this century for research scientists to successfully freeze human eggs. On October 19, 2012, the American Association of Reproductive Medicine issued a statement that egg freezes could be moved from the experimental category to the category of clinical use in American medicine. Therefore, it has been available in the US since late 2012 and has since been away.
There is a general assumption that women who freeze eggs want to continue climbing the carrier ladder before they have children, so there is a general assumption that they do so. What did you find in your research on this?
That was basically my hypothesis. And there is still the assumption that women do this as selfish and ambitious career women. But that’s true do not have Something I found in my research. In the end, it became very important for what I call “The Mating Gap.” Essentially, women who freeze eggs tend to be already educated, and successful professional women want… partnerships, pregnancy, parent-child relationships. They want to be moms With a partnerhowever, they lack what I call three ES: eligible, educated, equal male partners.
It’s really about gender disparities. They cannot find men willing to partner with them and have children. At the root of this is the large demographic disparities currently growing in our country and many countries around the world. Women are more educated than men. Currently, from the early 20s to late 30s, there are millions of women who have a four-year college or university education than men in the year of reproductive, which is important for women.
What are some other common ratios and stereotypes regarding freezing eggs that did not match what you found in your study?
Major issues with freezing eggs [is] It is not economically accessible for so many people. It takes about $15,000 to go through one cycle. I really didn’t know what I was trying to find, but overall I would say it is an elite population of American women who can afford to buy freezing eggs.
That tells the fact that these are women who are really invested in this idea. It’s not just that a gullible young woman is swallowing up marketing about freezing eggs.
no. There is a big assumption that women intend to graduate from university. The parents are trying to give them money to freeze the eggs. That’s not really a story. Most women, before considering doing it, say, “Why am I doing this? What does it bring to my life?”
It takes at least a month, so you won’t put it in light. You need to use powerful hormonal medications and inject them into your body. It costs money. Some women don’t try to get enough eggs and need to go through two, sometimes three, sometimes four cycles. It’s not a technique that you can easily enter. But when women freeze eggs, I discovered in my research that it gave a lot of spiritual comfort and relief to women who truly feel on the biological time clock. In my study, the average age when women first entered egg freeze was 36.6.
There is also this idea that freezing eggs is this easy and innocent route to postpone breeding, and that your book really challenged that idea.
Yes, that’s not a guarantee. In vitro fertilization [IVF]And the oldest reproductive techniques fail more frequently than they succeed. All of these reproductive techniques are challenging, so women are encouraged to obtain and store 15 or 20 eggs. But there was a story in a book about women who had kept more than that, when they stored 25 or 30 eggs and melted in, none of the eggs achieved the creation of a viable embryo.
The term “fertility insurance” is often used to describe the freezing of eggs. It is not a guaranteed form of wealth insurance. it’s not. That being said, I have a story in a book about a woman who successfully made a baby frozen egg. It works in some women, but it’s not 100% effective.
You write in your book about people who criticize this on feminist grounds. Can I get a little in?
There are different feminist positions when it comes to freezing eggs. I think [feminist critique] It was particularly vocal in 2013 when a major California tech company returned to 2013 when 500 adults employers offered egg freezes as a benefit of employment fertility. The assumption that is feminist criticism is, “Oh, these big companies are just trying to make women work harder, and they just try not to pursue reproductive desires and goals. It’s how employers defeat women and other aspirations in life.” But I’ve learned in my research. [was that] Many women in technology I fought To get the benefits of freezing eggs, it was when they saw that their married female colleagues received IVFs subsidized by health insurance because they were so upset as single women. I interviewed women who fought really hard at a large tech company and supported egg-free freezing, which felt discriminatory not only for single women but also for LGBTQ female workers who were unable to prove they had a year of unprotected sex.
I think the more important feminist criticism was what we would call intersecting feminist criticism. It’s basically banned for so many women because this is a very expensive technique. There are some truly effective feminist criticisms of this technology.
But with that being said, we have been in the fray of egg freezes and more and more women use it each year, which clearly benefits a certain percentage of Americans. And the eggs were taken off all over the world. At this point it’s a global technology.
Your review from the women who did that, they were mostly positive, right?
Yeah. I interviewed a woman who had already had eggs frozen and at least one round of eggs frozen. And I asked, “You did it, what do you think about it?” and there was this overflow. I had this huge chart with over 200 positive things women said in about 12 different categories. It gave them peace of mind, incredible psychological relief. It made them feel that they had an impact on the timing of their reproduction. They had more time on their side. It gave them a sense of technical optimism. There were many different categories that women felt that freezing eggs would benefit them. So, most of the time, they were happy they did it.
Some weren’t. I think we’ve seen more and more women in the media for years that have come forward with the freezing of eggs and say, “It’s not a technical panacea. It doesn’t always work. I wish I hadn’t spent $50,000 on it.” And they are legal too.
But most of the time, the women in my research who did the egg freeze were very relieved they did it and felt that it gave them this reprieve. In fact, “If I can’t find a partner, if that little dream doesn’t come true for me, can I carry it myself? Can I become a so-called single mother?” And some women in my research also made that decision.
Frozen eggs have been criticized for a lot of criticism. Different kinds of critiques about it. But when women have a desire to have children, when they have a strong reproductive desire, I see it like another technical tool that some women can use, at least to try to achieve their reproductive dreams and desires.
