Freezing and Thawing of eggs - intro

The Danish Act on Artificial Fertilization allows freezing of non-fertilized and fertilized eggs for the purpose of transferring them later to the woman from whom they were retrieved. At Fertilitetsklinik IVF-SYD we can offer you freezing of your surplus fertilized eggs as well as your unfertilized eggs.

The Danish Act on Artificial Fertilization permits storage of the eggs for five years.

When is it possible to freeze fertilized eggs
Freezing of fertilized eggs is only an option for the approximately 40% of our patients who have surplus eggs suitable for freezing. The reason is that on average, we retrieve 8-10 eggs per patient. Out of this number, only approximately 60-70% of the eggs will be fertilized, and not all the fertilized eggs divide satisfactorily. Only the best eggs are frozen, as they will also be the only ones to withstand this procedure and out of them, approximately only half of them will survive the thawing process.

Although you may have had a large number of eggs retrieved, it is not always a given that there will be eggs that are suitable for freezing.

Rules for freezing
The frozen fertilized eggs can only be used for the treatment of you. Thus, no other patients will be entitled to your eggs. Prior to the freezing procedure, you will both have to sign a consent form for freezing and storage of eggs and at the same time accept the terms and conditions governing this type of procedure.

Chances of pregnancy
As the first clinic in Denmark, we use a new freezing method known as vitrification. This method yields better results than the current freezing method, as an increasing number of eggs survive freezing and thawing. Our experience is that approximately 80% of the eggs survive, and the pregnancy success rate is 28.9% per embryo transfer. This freezing method also makes it possible for us to freeze unfertilized eggs.

In the former freezing methods, however, only approximately 50% of the eggs survived, and the pregnancy success rate was a mere 15-20% per embryo transfer.

Due to these promising results from the new freezing method, we recommend that only 2 embryos are transferred.

If you require further information about freezing and transfer of eggs and embryos, please click here.