Women freezing their biological clocks

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Technology that freezes a woman's eggs to allow her to carry a child later in life is growing in popularity.

And the opportunities to do so are expanding in Central Texas.

The technology was once reserved for women with severe diseases like cancer or lymphoma, that might impact their fertility. But more often, it is being marketed to the "woman-on-the-go" who ultimately wants to have children, but wants to wait until later in life when her chances to conceive decrease dramatically.

"That biological clock is ticking away and their chance for successful pregnancy with their own eggs is diminishing month by month by month and they want some sort of insurance policy," said Dr. Kaylen Silverberg, Medical Director at the Texas Fertility Center.

He adds that the insurance policy many women are taking out is to freeze their own young, viable, healthy eggs for use later in life.

"Egg-freezing is becoming more and more popular," said Dr. Silverberg. "At first we were doing it once every 6 to 8 months, then we started doing it once a month or two, and now we're probably doing a couple of patients every month."

Doctors have been freezing sperm and embryos for decades, but egg-freezing is a relatively new technology.

"Now we have women in their mid 30s or older who may not have found Mr. Right yet, but are very interested in preserving their fertility," said Dr. Silverberg. "They are shocked to learn that they are really running out of time and that their biological clock really is ticking and so they come in almost desperate because they want to do something to preserve their chance for pregnancy."

According to data from the Texas Fertility Center, a healthy 30-year-old woman has just a 20 percent chance of getting pregnant every month. By age 40, that number drops to 5 percent.

Worldwide, less than one thousand babies have been born from frozen eggs and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine still considers the procedure an "experimental technique."

The procedure would be cost-prohibitive to a lot of people, costing between $8,000 to $10,000 per round. It also involves several rounds of hormone injections.