Abu Dhabi: A growing number of unmarried individuals in the UAE are opting to freeze their eggs and sperm as the country awaits further updates on the legality of embryo freezing.
While doctors and patients are better aware about the benefits of freezing eggs and sperm when there are medical indications, this is also supported by better technology that makes the freezing process more effective, doctors told Gulf News.
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“Just during the past three months, 15 individuals have chosen to freeze their eggs or sperm through our centre. As a result, achieving pregnancy will not be impossible for these patients, even though many suffer from intractable diseases before marriage or are forced to delay their marriages,” Dr Elsamawal El Hakim, reproductive medicine and IVF (in vitro fertilisation) consultant at the HealthPlus Fertility Centre, told Gulf News.
Egg and sperm freezing helps preserve future reproductive potential. The cells are stored unfertilised, and to achieve a pregnancy, the couple must undergo IVF. While the procedure is mostly straightforward for married couples, unmarried individuals in the UAE must first seek approval from the Ministry of Health.
“This is still a grey area in the UAE, but we certainly get many more requests, especially from single women who are choosing to delay their marriages for a variety of reasons. This year, we have performed about a handful of the procedures already, but there is still a need for greater clarity on the issue,” said Dr Monikaa Chawla, consultant for reproductive endocrinology, infertility, obstetrics and gynaecology at Fakih IVF.
A number of medical conditions heighten the need to preserve eggs and sperm, especially as the treatment can deplete their quantity or quality. These include cancers, blood disorders like beta thalassaemia, and autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, as the chemotherapy and immunotherapy used to treat them can affect the patient’s fertility. In addition, in cases where patients are facing a depletion of ovarian reserves, egg and sperm freezing are recommended.
Last year, Moza Al Matrooshi, a 24-year-old Emirati from Dubai, became the first woman in the world to have a baby using ovarian tissue that had been frozen before she had reached puberty. She was an unmarried nine-year-old when her parents chose to freeze her ovarian tissue, and she then underwent chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant to cure her beta thalassaemia.
Dr El Hakim said one of the recent patients at HealthPlus was a 26-year-old Arab woman diagnosed with breast cancer. With her parents’ consent and the ministry’s approval, 12 of her eggs were frozen before the start of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In another case, a 29-year-old man with leukaemia chose to freeze two semen samples.
“An Emirati woman in her mid-30s who is pursuing her postgraduate studies abroad also received permission to freeze her eggs, as medical examinations had shown that her ovarian reserve has started to decline,” Dr El Hakim said.
Medical technology also better supports egg and sperm freezing, the doctors said. In the past, the cells would undergo slow freezing till the temperature reduce to about negative 85 degrees Celsius. Now, with a relatively new technique known as vitrification, the cells are frozen rapidly till the temperature drops to negative 194 degrees Celsius.
“With these techniques, less eggs are lost, and there is a better success rate for achieving a pregnancy in the future,” Dr Chawla explained.
