Understanding IVF, frozen embryos and egg freezing
The ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos can be considered “children” under state law has left doctors stunned and fertility patients worried about how this will affect them. It’s also led to a lot of questions about IVF treatments, frozen embryos and egg freezing. Yahoo Life’s Rachel Grumman Bender offers a guide to some of these terms in reproductive medicine and to the impact the Alabama ruling may have on fertility treatments.
Video Transcript
RACHEL GRUMMAN BENDER: The ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law has left doctors stunned and fertility patients worried about how this will impact them. It's also led to a lot of confusion and questions about IVF treatments, frozen embryos, and egg freezing. Here's what you need to know.
Patients who don't want to become pregnant right away, but are concerned about egg loss due to aging or medical treatments like chemotherapy, can opt to freeze their eggs or sperm and store them in liquid nitrogen tanks. On the other hand, those trying to get pregnant through IVF require embryos, which are eggs fertilized with sperm. It's common practice to create more embryos than you plan to transfer because it's generally safer to transfer only one at a time to reduce the risk of multiple gestation pregnancies, meaning twins or triplets. So the extra embryos can be frozen in liquid nitrogen for later use.
And they have a long shelf life. According to one fertility specialist we spoke to, quote, "Technically, if embryos are frozen and stored properly, there is no expiration date on how long they can remain frozen. In some cases, there may be certain practices or laws that say the eggs can only be stored for a certain time and need to be used by then." Some of these embryos are discarded during the IVF process due to genetic abnormalities or if the patient no longer needs them. For example, patients that have already had all the children they want through IVF might decide to stop storing their excess embryos.
However, because these are fertilized eggs, in some states with highly restrictive abortion laws, such as Alabama, medical providers may be held legally responsible for discarding these embryos, or patients may find themselves having to cover the cost of storing their frozen embryos in perpetuity. In the meantime, as the debate continues around when life begins, the future of fertility treatments in some states remains uncertain.
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