Egg-freezing is a fixed deposit for your fertility

Dubai - Fertility experts say that today women can freeze their eggs during the peak of their fertility period for future use.

Women in the UAE are putting off marriages in the hope of finding 'Mr Right' and in the process, delaying motherhood.

This delay, according to experts, is affecting the most crucial years of a female's fertility, a fact that is supported by the declining birth rates.

In many other cases, women are also rendered infertile due to cancer treatments. As an option, fertility experts say that today women can freeze their eggs during the peak of their fertility period for future use.

Waiting for Mr. Right without fear of ticking biological clock

Dr Daamini ShrivastavD

Malini (name changed), who turned 36 this year, has undergone the egg-freezing procedure and says there is nothing to lose. "I have seen my friends wait for the right relationship which sometimes has happened when they have reached the end of their 30s ... I have seen them suffer because they then wanted kids but couldn't have them."

She says the procedure is pretty straightforward. "It doesn't guarantee anything but potentially increases the chance. With age the probability of getting pregnant decreases and this is a good back up if you want to have children in the future," advises Malini, who is about to get married soon.

Daamini Shrivastav, a doctor, says egg freezing is to the 21st century what the contraceptive pill was to women in the 60s. "It is the single most empowering tool that the modern working woman has at her disposal. For all detractors that argued that women should marry early and start a family before pursuing their careers, this is a firm rebuttal. Unlike our male counterparts, we do have a ticking biological clock but egg freezing just reset the timer on those clocks," she says.

"In this competitive professional world, it usually takes a decade (and more) to establish oneself and it is demanding enough without having to worry about the pressures of beginning a family. Further, that elusive Mr. Right has become all that more elusive and for women, egg freezing has made handling the gender bias and annual declining egg count easier.

"I personally recommend it to every woman who asks me what I think. 'It's a fixed deposit for your fertility,' I say. Modern day urban living is hard enough and I feel quite strongly about empowering more women to go out and conquer the world and indeed have it all - a career, a partner and motherhood if they choose to."

"In the US, when the technique became part of mainstream treatment in 2013, women started putting careers ahead of family because they had an option," says Dr Pankaj Shrivastav, director of Conceive Clinics in Dubai and Sharjah. "Today, in the UAE, women are delaying marriages while waiting to find the right man."

According to the Dubai Health Authority's (DHA) statistical guidebook for 2015, the average Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was two children per woman in the age group of 15 to 49 years. The DHA attributed the declining birth rates to urbanisation, changing attitudes about family size, increased education and work opportunities for women.

In January, a report titled 'Fertility Rates among Emiratis in Dubai: Challenges, Policies and the Way Forward' showed that late marriages, putting off having children and high costs of raising children are among the several reasons for a dramatic dip in fertility rates among Emiratis in Dubai. An Emirati family has three children on an average now as compared to seven in the 1970s, it said.

"This technique has helped men freeze sperms but as technology progressed, women are now also able to freeze good quality eggs," Dr Shrivastav explains. "However, this treatment is not an alternative unless it is absolutely necessary."

Dr David Robertson, group medical director, Bourn Hall Clinic, Dubai, says that an increasing number of women are choosing to wait before having children.

"We are seeing increasing numbers of women who, for many positive reasons, choose to wait before having children, but unfortunately they have gone on to experience fertility problems," he says. "A woman's chance of successful pregnancy is closely linked to her age, so, if eggs are frozen when she is younger, the chance of pregnancy at a later age may be greatly improved, especially after the age of 40. Also, the risk of abnormalities in the baby is primarily linked to the age of the eggs, so that is another benefit of doing this earlier."

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE