This week, 60 Minutes reported on egg freezing: a medical process by which a girl’s eggs are harvested, frozen and saved till she is able to have youngsters.
Correspondent Lesley Stahl visited a fertility clinic in Manhattan to see the egg retrieval course of with Dr. Tomer Singer, head of Northwell Well being’s fertility apply.
After a affected person had eggs retrieved from her ovaries in a surgical process, Stahl and Dr. Singer watched on a monitor as embryologists used tiny pipettes underneath a microscope to search out and isolate the egg cells.
These eggs are then put onto tiny straws and plunged into liquid nitrogen. When the girl is able to try to have youngsters, even years later, the eggs may be thawed, fertilized and implanted in her uterus.
The hope is that the eggs will produce a toddler, however that final result is not assured.
60 Minutes reported that egg freezing is changing into more and more common amongst younger girls.
Stahl interviewed a bunch of ladies who spoke about their experiences with egg freezing, and shared their causes for doing it.
Yasmine Higbee, 30, advised Stahl she was going to begin freezing her eggs within the coming days.
“I feel that it form of offers you insurance coverage on having youngsters, in a method. So, simply in case you do have issues conceiving on the time you wish to get pregnant …you may have the choice,” she defined to Stahl.
“[You] know behind your head, ‘Wow, I have already got these eggs which are frozen from 5 or 6 years in the past… there are different choices for me to get pregnant.'”
Kate Sonderegger froze her eggs at 22. She advised Stahl she was freezing her eggs at a younger age as a result of she’s going to medical college.
“Training for 4 years, coaching for anyplace from 4 to seven years after that,” Sonderegger mentioned.
“I am not even going to consider constructing a household, personally, till after I am finished with all of that.”
Docs advised 60 Minutes that girls contemplating freezing their eggs must be conscious that the process doesn’t guarantee success.
Dr. Fortunate Sekhon of RMA of New York tells her sufferers that freezing eggs can by no means assure being pregnant later. Much like naturally occurring pregnancies, there’s drop off at every step of the journey from an unfertilized egg to a profitable start.
“A 35-year-old has 15 eggs frozen… you are roughly 90% thaw survival charge,” she advised Stahl for instance.
“As an instance 13 out of 15 survive the thaw. Perhaps 10 out of 13 will fertilize. And 60%, on common, of fertilized eggs will flip into embryos. That is six embryos. That is the sharpest drop off. And you then go to check them… two thirds will likely be regular. So now you may have 4 embryos.”
And the process is extraordinarily costly, particularly for almost all of ladies who do not have insurance coverage protection for egg freezing from their employer.
“It is tens of hundreds of {dollars}. The process itself, the freezing, the thawing. After egg freezing, there’s IVF. It is a lengthy course of, and every step prices some huge cash,” Stahl advised 60 Minutes Extra time.
Jennifer Lannon is a co-founder of Freeze.Well being, an internet site that helps girls discover costs for clinics all over the world, examine the out-of-pocket price for every step of the process, and calculate the storage bills.
She advised Stahl the typical price of a single cycle, from egg retrieval, to freezing to storage.
“The typical all-in price for a single cycle of egg freezing is round $12,000 to $13,000 {that a} lady is paying on common,” she advised Stahl.
Docs typically advocate {that a} lady endure a number of cycles of egg freezing to extend the variety of eggs accessible for fertilization and implantation afterward to up her probabilities of success, elevating the price even additional.
“Increasingly yearly, we’re seeing employers present protection for egg freezing for his or her workers….[We will] proceed to see that pattern enhance. However nonetheless, the vast majority of girls should pay out of pocket,” Lannon advised 60 Minutes.
Lannon confirmed Stahl estimated costs for one cycle of egg freezing at clinics in Atlanta, Georgia.
“That is $6,000,” Stahl famous at one clinic as she scanned the web site’s outcomes.
Biomedical corporations are engaged on advances that might make the method simpler and fewer onerous for girls.
Stahl mentioned she expects egg freezing to develop into extra frequent.
“I am anticipating that egg freezing will develop into a lot simpler… that increasingly girls are going to do it.”
The video above was initially printed on Might 4, 2025. It was produced by Will Croxton and was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
