This week, 60 Minutes reported on egg freezing: a medical process through which a lady’s eggs are harvested, frozen and saved till she is able to have kids.
Correspondent Lesley Stahl visited a fertility clinic in Manhattan to see the egg retrieval course of with Dr. Tomer Singer, head of Northwell Well being’s fertility observe.
After a affected person had eggs retrieved from her ovaries in a surgical process, Stahl and Dr. Singer watched on a monitor as embryologists used tiny pipettes below a microscope to search out and isolate the egg cells.
These eggs are then put onto tiny straws and plunged into liquid nitrogen. When the girl is able to attempt to have kids, even years later, the eggs could be thawed, fertilized and implanted in her uterus.
The hope is that the eggs will produce a baby, however that end result is not assured.
60 Minutes reported that egg freezing is changing into more and more fashionable amongst younger girls.
Stahl interviewed a bunch of girls who spoke about their experiences with egg freezing, and shared their causes for doing it.
Yasmine Higbee, 30, instructed Stahl she was going to begin freezing her eggs within the coming days.
“I feel that it type of offers you insurance coverage on having kids, in a approach. So, simply in case you do have issues conceiving on the time you wish to get pregnant …you might have the choice,” she defined to Stahl.
“[You] know behind your head, ‘Wow, I have already got these eggs which can be frozen from 5 or 6 years in the past… there are different choices for me to get pregnant.'”
Kate Sonderegger froze her eggs at 22. She instructed Stahl she was freezing her eggs at a younger age as a result of she’s going to medical college.
“Training for 4 years, coaching for wherever from 4 to seven years after that,” Sonderegger mentioned.
“I am not even going to consider constructing a household, personally, till after I am accomplished with all of that.”
Docs instructed 60 Minutes that girls contemplating freezing their eggs needs to be conscious that the process doesn’t guarantee success.
Dr. Fortunate Sekhon of RMA of New York tells her sufferers that freezing eggs can by no means assure being pregnant later. Just like naturally occurring pregnancies, there’s drop off at every step of the journey from an unfertilized egg to a profitable delivery.
“A 35-year-old has 15 eggs frozen… you are taking a look at roughly 90% thaw survival price,” she instructed Stahl for example.
“As an instance 13 out of 15 survive the thaw. Possibly 10 out of 13 will fertilize. And 60%, on common, of fertilized eggs will flip into embryos. That is six embryos. That is the sharpest drop off. And you then go to check them… two thirds shall be regular. So now you might have 4 embryos.”
And the process is extraordinarily costly, particularly for almost all of girls who haven’t got insurance coverage protection for egg freezing from their employer.
“It is tens of hundreds of {dollars}. The process itself, the freezing, the thawing. After egg freezing, there’s IVF. It is a lengthy course of, and every step prices some huge cash,” Stahl instructed 60 Minutes Time beyond regulation.
Jennifer Lannon is a co-founder of Freeze.Well being, an internet site that helps girls discover costs for clinics world wide, verify the out-of-pocket value for every step of the process, and calculate the storage bills.
She instructed Stahl the typical value of a single cycle, from egg retrieval, to freezing to storage.
“The common all-in value for a single cycle of egg freezing is round $12,000 to $13,000 {that a} girl is paying on common,” she instructed Stahl.
Docs generally suggest {that a} girl endure a number of cycles of egg freezing to extend the variety of eggs obtainable for fertilization and implantation afterward to up her probabilities of success, elevating the fee even additional.
“Increasingly yearly, we’re seeing employers present protection for egg freezing for his or her staff….[We will] proceed to see that pattern improve. However nonetheless, the vast majority of girls should pay out of pocket,” Lannon instructed 60 Minutes.
Lannon confirmed Stahl estimated costs for one cycle of egg freezing at clinics in Atlanta, Georgia.
“That is $6,000,” Stahl famous at one clinic as she scanned the web site’s outcomes.
Biomedical firms are engaged on advances that may make the method simpler and fewer onerous for girls.
Stahl mentioned she expects egg freezing to change into extra frequent.
“I am anticipating that egg freezing will change into a lot simpler… that increasingly girls are going to do it.”
The video above was initially revealed on Could 4, 2025. It was produced by Will Croxton and was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
