A recent study performed has come back with interesting results, infants born from embryos which were frozen and then thawed before being implanted into a woman had a higher birth weight and were less likely to suffer abnormalities than those from fresh embryos. Babies from frozen embryos were on average 200 grams heavier on birth than those from fresh embryos. The proportion of low birth weight and pre-term children was significantly lower. Also, fewer of the children were also twins or triplets, which is important since multiple births are known to increase the risk of complications as well as the danger to the mother. Multiple births accounted for 27.3 per cent of children born from fresh embryos, compared with 14.2 per cent when frozen embryos were used. 

Despite the risks, should multiple births be looked at negatively? The study looked at more than 1,200 children born between 1995 and 2006 after frozen embryo replacement (FER) and 17,857 children born from “fresh” embryos. Do you think these numbers could be the reasons why this study came up with this fascinating result? Freezing embryos allows couples to have several IVF treatment cycles from the same egg collection, reducing the number of times that the ovaries are stimulated. There are other factors that could cause these results, such as positive selection of the embryos for frozen embryo replacement, or, only the very top quality embryos survive the freezing and thawing process, or even, you only get pregnancies in patients with lots of good embryos to freeze. Do you think studies like this will lead more women to freeze their eggs “just in case”? Should there be more information for women to learn about freezing to give them more options later in their life? What are your thoughts? www.ericksonlaw.net  
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2267497/Frozen-embryos-better-than-fresh%2C-study-shows.html