Let those tonsils stay in there, says study

Eggs in the bank: not a good investment…

As more women delay motherhood, some fertility doctors are offering them an alternative before age-related deterioration sets in: the option to ‘‘bank’’ eggs, a method long used to preserve sperm. But critics say that freezing, or cryopreservation, of single-cell eggs is still in the experimental stages, and success rates do not warrant its promotion as a viable choice. ‘‘Freezing an egg is very different than freezing sperm,’’ said Dr Machelle Seibel, professor of clinical gynaecology at the University of Massachusetts. ‘‘There are millions of sperm, if you lose half, so what?’’

Egg cryopreservation is already being used to give patients who need fertility-destroying chemotherapy or women whose ovaries have to be removed a chance to someday have a baby. ‘‘This is still a very experimental procedure and should only be offered to women who are about to be rendered sterile,’’ said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. ‘‘People who are promoting this procedure are playing on the fears of young American professional women who are putting off childbirth while they pursue careers, care for aging parents or take time to find the right partner,’’ University of Massachusetts professor Seibel said.

Women who opt for egg freezing will need to take fertility drugs and undergo a surgical procedure to retrieve eggs from the ovaries. ‘‘There are some health risks,’’ Seibel said. ‘‘They could cause the very thing they are trying to prevent.’’

(Reuters)

… But single women say they’re out of time

More than two-thirds of single women who choose to have a baby using donated sperm do so because they fear they are running out of time to find a man they would want to have a child with, research indicates. In the first study to look at solo mothers using sperm banks, researchers found that fertility problems were not always the motivation. ‘‘More than two-thirds of single women said their decision was prompted by a growing sense that time was running out to fulfil the lifelong dream of having a child,’’ said lead investigator, Dr Clare Murray, a researcher at the Family and Child Psychology Research Center in London. Many of the mothers in the study would have preferred to have a child within a relationship. However, nearly a third of the women, whose average age was 38, said they wanted to go it alone.

(AP/PTI)