Extra girls within the UK than ever earlier than are contemplating freezing their eggs, with the sharp rise in inquiries at a few of London’s largest clinics attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. No surprise maybe, since social restrictions have impacted single folks wishing to couple-up, making it considerably harder to go on dates or meet potential companions.
The present extended uncertainty concerning the future has exacerbated the considerations that many single childless girls – particularly these of their mid-30s – had been already reporting, together with anxieties concerning the ticking of their organic clocks and fears over age-related fertility decline.
Sarah, a 36-year-old HR supervisor who just lately got here out of a four-year relationship, feels the pandemic couldn’t have come at a extra pricey time in her private life. She advised me: “I’ve this fixed underlying fear that by the point this all blows over and I can lastly meet somebody, I might need missed the boat to turn out to be a mom.”
It’s straightforward to see why girls like Sarah would possibly go for egg freezing. But whereas this expertise can definitely be helpful for some girls, new analysis reveals that it might not all the time be as easy because it seems.
Many features of egg freezing have been mentioned within the media, but to this point, there was nearly no consideration paid to the methods through which fertility clinics promote, market and promote their egg freezing companies on their web sites, and the standard of data that’s out there to potential sufferers contemplating their choices.
So as to handle this hole, my colleague Emily Tiemann and I analysed the web sites of the UK’s 15 largest fertility clinics providing egg freezing. Our just lately revealed findings make uncomfortable studying.
Deceptive web sites?
Our analysis means that fertility clinic web sites within the UK, taken normally, present a poor commonplace of data and, we argue, should be urgently improved, for causes of each medical ethics and client rights. In fact, as web sites are dynamic entities a few of them might have already improved or modified since we took our “snapshot” (in June 2019), however our findings however elevate considerations for potential sufferers.
We discovered that a lot of the clinics we checked out introduced what we imagine is an unbalanced view of egg freezing on their web sites, highlighting its potential advantages and failing to adequately talk about its potential dangers. Clinics’ web sites had been additionally not sufficiently clear and clear about the price of an egg freezing cycle, with the typical “true” price exceeding the marketed prices by roughly a 3rd (on common an extra £923).
Lastly, we got here to the view that clinics didn’t all the time present correct information or success charges. In actual fact, of the 15 analysed, we solely rated one clinic web site as “good” by way of its high quality of data.
We reached out to all 15 clinics for remark. Harley Avenue Fertility Clinic responded:
We welcome the Gurtin and Tiemann paper as a result of it goals to enhance the standard of data offered to sufferers. Nonetheless, we don’t essentially agree with all of the metrics and indicators utilized by the authors as a part of their evaluation […] As a clinic, we try to be clear and clear in our communications. Therefore, we’ll use the solutions made within the paper to enhance our communications with sufferers.
IVI Midland responded by declaring that since 2019, the clinic had been acquired by CARE Fertility and subsequently the web site we analysed is not lively. CARE Fertility, in the meantime, replied:
The variety of egg freezing cycles we feature out may be very small, and as success charge information is barely out there as soon as a lady returns for fertility remedy (usually a few years later), now we have even much less success charge information […] On the time of the examine in June 2019, the egg freezing web page of our web site might have extra clearly defined the prices concerned with egg freezing, however now we have since up to date the web page to additional assist sufferers entry the data they want.
The opposite clinics we approached for remark didn’t reply. However it’s welcome information that some have been working to enhance their web site content material.
Potential dangers
We’ve issued an pressing advice for clinic web sites to be improved, however it’s troublesome for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to implement such adjustments when a lot of the financial or industrial features of fertility remedies fall outdoors its remit.
However the subject is urgent, since we contend that the shortage of excellent high quality data compromises the power of ladies like Sarah to make really knowledgeable choices, and leaves them inadequately knowledgeable or misinformed about essential features, reminiscent of prices to plan for or potential dangers to weigh up.
Justine*, a journalist who lives in London, froze her eggs two years in the past, aged 38. She advised me that though she went to some lengths to analysis the expertise, she nonetheless felt unprepared for the truth of how it will really feel to freeze her eggs.
Justine discovered herself in significantly extra bodily discomfort than she had anticipated, feeling bloated, uncomfortable and in ache regardless of having been advised she would have the ability to go about her regular life earlier than the process. Her bodily discomforts continued and even worsened after egg assortment:
Because the hours handed, I nonetheless felt extremely weak, bloated and wanting breath. I referred to as the clinic who simply stated for those who proceed to really feel dangerous, then go to A&E. It was at that time I felt very alone.
She felt that the clinic had relinquished all duty. “I went to A&E and was admitted in a single day, with a collection of checks and observations confirming that I had OHSS,” she stated.
Whereas Justine was unfortunate to endure from ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a uncommon complication of the IVF and egg freezing processes attributable to the manufacturing of too many eggs, she felt she lacked details about this potential danger and that the clinic didn’t supply sufficient follow-up care.
Sufferers or revenue?
The fertility trade is turning into more and more commercialised, a consideration that’s notably pertinent within the case of egg freezing, which takes place primarily within the personal sector. That is a facet that Lucy van de Wiel, a researcher at Cambridge College’s Reproductive Sociology Analysis Group, focuses on.
Her new e book, Freezing Fertility, attracts consideration to the potential conflicts between scientific decision-making or sufferers’ finest pursuits on the one hand and enterprise and revenue motives on the opposite. Market forces within the fertility trade, political pursuits underlying laws, and age-old cultural narratives of gender and motherhood play a task in our reproductive decision-making.
Given this, I might urge girls contemplating egg freezing to look past the data on clinic web sites. Particularly, girls might want to ask clinics for particular and verified information concerning the variety of cycles they’ve carried out annually or their success charges.
They could need to ask questions on precisely what’s and isn’t included in marketed pricing, and to seek the advice of the HFEA web site for an unbiased dialogue of the advantages and dangers of the expertise. It may also be extraordinarily useful to debate egg freezing with others who’ve been by means of the method, to achieve a sensible impression of what it entails.
Regardless of her difficulties, general Justine feels “a way of consolation” realizing that she has frozen eggs in storage, however she does supply a notice of warning:
Whereas the method is introduced as being pretty easy, it does have highly effective bodily, emotional and psychological impacts so it is vital to not gloss over it as a ‘process’ and be sure to have assist out there.
*Identify and figuring out particulars have been modified.
