Actor Shehnaaz Gill says egg freezing should be done early before marriage: A fertility expert explains the ideal age and how to prepare yourself

Egg quality starts declining after 30, drops sharply after 35 and declines even faster after 38.

But even if you are not ready for marriage, get your eggs frozen early as doctors say.

Actor Shehnaaz Gill said: "Even if you are not ready for marriage, get your eggs frozen early as doctors say". (Credit: Instagram/shehnaazgill)

Recently actor Shehnaaz Gill shared her candid thoughts on marriage, saying that it depended on every woman’s choice and urged them to freeze their eggs instead in time so that they could become mothers later. During a podcast to promote her film Ikk Kudi, she said, “I think the ideal time for Indian women to get married would be 30 or 31. I myself am 31 and sometimes feel I should have a baby some day. But even if you are not ready for marriage, get your eggs frozen early as doctors say. I am planning to do so too.”

Gill is not the only woman to feel this way. In fact, over the last five years, Dr Anjali Malpani, infertility specialist and professor emeritus at KEM Hospital, Mumbai, is seeing more younger women walking into her clinic to freeze their eggs. “Egg freezing is the best option for young women to preserve their fertility and not worry about motherhood with or without marriage. It means you can freeze your eggs when you’re young and use them later — whether after marriage, when you’re ready to have a baby, or once your career is stable. This way, you’re no longer dependent on your biological clock, can work on your priorities without denying yourself the right to motherhood on your terms. Call it fertility insurance for your future family,” says the doctor who was among the first to do egg retrieval in 1998. Excerpts:

When should you freeze your eggs?

You should freeze your eggs when they are at their peak quality, ideally by age 30. Egg quality starts declining after 30, drops sharply after 35, and declines even faster after 38. If you freeze poor-quality eggs at an older age, your chances of a successful pregnancy later are very low.

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I would say an ideal age range is between 25 and 32. Your eggs are still of high quality and you will still have a much better chance of success when you use them later. After 38, your ovarian reserve (the number of eggs you are born with) drops steeply, and after 40, the conception success rate with your own eggs is under 5% per cycle. Even when embryos form after in-vitro (lab) fertilisation (IVF), many carry genetic abnormalities, so the live birth rate is even lower.

Will my frozen eggs have the same quality when I use them for IVF years later?

The quality of your frozen eggs does not decline over time and there have been successful pregnancies with eggs frozen over many years. Eggs can remain viable indefinitely when stored at extremely low temperatures in a certified lab. But legally in India, you can do so for 10 years.

Traditionally, eggs were frozen by a slow dunk method that gradually reduced the temperature of the eggs. But this freezing method led to formation of ice crystals which can be detrimental to eggs. Now, vitrification or a fast-freeze process eliminates the chance of ice crystal formation. With this procedure, the survival rate for freezing and thawing increases to 98 per cent.

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If a woman chooses to freeze her eggs at the right time, and they are of good quality, why does she need fertility injections?

These hormone injections are necessary to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs instead of the usual one, which can be used for IVF cycles. The injections are given daily for a few days, with a doctor monitoring progress through ultrasounds and blood tests. Once the eggs mature, they are retrieved and frozen in a lab.

Are fertility injections painful?

Now we use technologically advanced thin needles, which are not painful at all and are subcutaneous. In fact, all our patients take these injections at home by themselves once they are educated on self-administering them. They are safe and cut down their trips to the clinic. The injection is first given on Day 2 of your period cycle. On Day 7 of your cycle, we do sonography and blood tests for monitoring. On day 10, if eggs are ready, we give the trigger injection of hormones. We retrieve the eggs 36 hours after the trigger injection. So, everything gets done in 10 to 12 days. After retrieval, the woman can go back to work.

How to prepare for egg-freezing?

Take the Anti Mullerian Hormone test that tells the woman about her ovarian reserve. Any reading between four and five is healthy, while anything less than two is complicated. Just stay relaxed, go off alcohol and smoking, limit sugar, have a balanced, nutrient-dense diet, exercise and sleep well. Start preparing for egg freezing in advance so that lifestyle changes take effect.