Postmedia papers - Freezing the tick tick tock of the biological clock

Proponents of egg freezing say the technique is the greatest advance in female reproductive choice since the Pill. Critics say it is unproven and will only encourage women to push back motherhood to a point when the risks for mother and child are greater. Sharon Kirkey reports.

Five years after McGill University researchers in Montreal announced the first successful birth in Canada resulting from frozen eggs, growing numbers of women are seeking egg freezing for fertility preservation. Proponents say the unregulated but legal practice represents the single greatest advance in reproductive "choice" since the Pill's invention half a century ago, offering a woman the opportunity to push the limits of her "reproductive capacity" without worrying about the tick, tick ticking of her reproductive clock…

To date, more than 30 children have been born from eggs frozen at the McGill Reproductive Centre where Shah underwent three cycles of egg collections; dozens more women have eggs in deep freeze. The centre's founder, Dr. Seang Lin Tan, an internationally regarded expert in reproductive medicine, is now offering fertility preservation by egg freezing in his newly opened Montreal Reproductive Centre.