Vitrification has taken egg freezing to the next level for women who want to postpone motherhood
Women today can do something that women even a decade ago didn’t have the option to do, which is to postpone their fertility using egg freezing. A flash-freezing technique known as vitrification has helped improve egg freezing success rates. This means more women are taking control of their fertility using the egg freezing process. Our Las Vegas egg freezing experts are here to help you learn more about flash-freezing eggs.
Vitrification helps protect eggs during the freezing process
Previous egg freezing methods slowly froze the eggs, which can result in the formation of ice crystals. These crystals could damage the delicate eggs during thawing later. Thankfully, vitrification came along and changed all that.
Using this flash-freezing process, embryologists in the lab can transform the liquid inside of each egg into a glass-like state. By freezing the eggs quickly, there isn’t time for the damaging ice crystals to form. This results in more eggs surviving the freeze and thaw process and higher pregnancy rates using frozen eggs.
Flash-freezing eggs involves several steps to make fertility preservation possible
Our Las Vegas egg freezing specialists in the lab follow these steps to freeze eggs using vitrification.
- An embryologist first places the eggs in a bath that contains a special cryoprotectant, or a special antifreeze solution. The solution draws the water out of the eggs.
- The embryologist then places the eggs into tiny storage devices before cooling the eggs within the devices very quickly.
After the eggs are frozen, they can remain that way indefinitely. For eggs that will be frozen for several years, our Las Vegas egg freezing specialists recommend placing them into long-term frozen storage.
Once a patient is ready to conceive using the frozen eggs, the embryologists will retrieve them from long-term storage. Then, they will quickly warm the eggs and then fertilize them with sperm from the woman’s partner or sperm donor. Finally, one of our doctors will transfer a resulting embryo into the patient’s uterus. Alternatively, they can transfer the embryo to the uterus of the patient’s gestational carrier.
The egg freezing process can help women postpone motherhood until they feel ready for it. Contact us to learn whether fertility preservation is right for you.