Jennifer AniSTON waNts women to think about egg freezing
“I would've given anything if someone had said to me, 'Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.'
Opening up in an interview with Allure about her fertility struggles, Jennifer Aniston said: “I would've given anything if someone had said to me, 'Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.'
Jennifer was the nineties and noughties it girl with the haircut everybody copied. But for her generation (so called Gen X women), egg freezing was not available to the mainstream.
With no shortage of funds, Jen, like so many others of her generation, did not consider freezing her eggs. Later in life, she faced tabloids constantly commentating on whether she was or wasn’t pregnant while privately she went through IVF struggles and ultimately could not conceive.
Growing up, women find there are a lot of things our parents and teachers fail to tell us. One is that getting pregnant when you want to may not be easy.
Egg quality and number decline rapidly after the age of 35. This generation know what egg freezing is. Egg freezing has gone from marginal to mainstream in one generation.
If you are approaching 30, the thought “should I freeze my eggs” may not have occurred to you. However, egg freezing at a young age is a great option to consider, and one I think all parents should discuss with their daughters.
You don’t need to decide now if you want kids, but if you do, why not use all tests and technologies available and consider giving yourself the best biological advantage? If your need to delay becoming a parent due to choice or circumstance, you can keep an ace up your sleeve by freezing a solid number of eggs at an age where eggs are of high quality.
Freezing eggs is not an absolute guarantee of future live birth, but it is a sound, proven assisted reproductive technology and can radically improve your chances.
Written by Dr Raelia Lew
RANZCOG Board Certified CREI Fertility specialist, Gynaecologist and the Director of Women’s Health Melbourne.
Co-host of the Knocked Up Podcast, Co-founder of Lovers intimate wellness solutions. Raelia has a PhD in Preconception Health Promotion and Genetic Screening. Raelia is a leading Australian expert in IVF and egg freezing, pioneering a bespoke model of care.