Social Egg Freezing is a Thing? What Exactly is it?

theAsianparent sat with Ms Khaw Xin Tian, co-founder of EggChill last week and learnt so much about something we’ve never really heard about in Singapore. What is social egg freezing? Can we do it in Singapore? How can a woman get it done? How much does it cost? Is it safe?

Here she answers all our questions.

An interesting concept that is not widely spoken about, take sneak peek on what it all entails.

Watch the video here:

#1 What is social egg freezing?

• Women choose to freeze their eggs either or medical or social reasons. The process is carried out when women want or need to delay childbearing in order to pursue an educational career, other personal goals or simply have not found Mr Right

#2 Singapore and egg freezing

• Women in Singapore are allowed to perform egg freezing only if there is a medical reason ( eg. If they need to undergo chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer which could damage their eggs
• A bioethics legal research in Singapore’s findings of egg freezing in Singapore.

#3 The Process

• Egg freezing cycle timeline
• Female fertility preservation
• The process

#4 The Risks & Successes

• The chance of a live birth is similar for vitrified and ‘fresh’ eggs used in IVF treatment. The two most important factors that determine the chance of having a baby from frozen eggs are the woman’s age when the eggs were frozen and the number of eggs that are stored.
• A small proportion of women have an excessive response to the fertility drugs that are used to stimulate the ovaries. In rare cases this causes ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a potentially serious condition. Bleeding and infection are very rare complications of the egg retrieval procedure.
• It is important to understand egg freezing does not provide a guarantee. Here are some articles on the flip side of egg freezing.

#5 Companies providing egg freezing as a perk for employees

• Companies such as Facebook & Apple have included egg freezing as a perk for their employees

#6 Egg storage

• Biologically, eggs can be stored indefinitely but some countries have specific laws, for examples in Victoria (Australia), the legal storage time limit is 10 years after which time you can apply for an extension.

#7 Price ranges

• (USD 5K to 20K depending on countries you do it at). Some of the possible places to do it are the following: United States, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and Australia

#8 Celebrities who have done social egg freezing

• Celine Dion
• Olivia Munn
• Xu Jing Lei

#9 China and egg freezing

• Freezing eggs is for social reasons and single women is currently also banned in China. Alibaba’s group buying site Juhuasuan is in talks to organise egg freezing trips to the United States in partnership with an American fertility clinic.

#10 Eggchill and what they aim to do

• Understand Singapore Women’s perception of freezing their eggs.
• Educate women on their fertility as well as the procedure and risk of egg freezing to help women make the choice if egg freezing is the right thing for them to do
• For women that do want to freeze their eggs, we will connect them to reputable clinics around the region and help ensure quality and coordination of care. 

For more information on egg freezing, visit eggchill.