Now women can delay motherhood by freezing their ovaries and having them re-implanted years later

British women are to be  given the chance of delaying motherhood by freezing parts of their ovaries.

They will be able to ‘bank’ their ovarian tissue in their twenties  and early thirties, when it is most fertile, and have it re-implanted years later.

Fertility specialists are planning to open the first clinic in the country to offer the procedure, which could cost as much as £16,000, within the next six months.

At present it is only available in a few countries, including the United States, Denmark and Belgium, and so far just 19 babies have been born as a result.

But experts claim the controversial treatment will soon become commonplace as it has been shown to be more effective than egg  freezing and even IVF.

It involves extracting about a third of the tissue of one of the two ovaries which usually contains around 60,000 eggs.

It is stored in liquid nitrogen in temperatures of minus 190c until the woman decides she is ready for children, when it is thawed and re-inserted into the ovary. Within a few months it should begin producing eggs.

So far most of the women who have had the treatment have been cancer patients hoping to preserve their ovarian tissue in case it is damaged through chemotherapy.

But British doctors are planning to offer the procedure to other women who may want to put off having children for other ‘social’ reasons.

Costs are likely to range from £5,000 to £10,000 to remove and store the tissue with another £6,000 to re-implant it. This compares with £4,000 for a cycle of IVF and £5,000 for egg freezing plus £100 for every year eggs are stored.

Experts say the ovarian tissue method is far more successful as it can potentially yield thousands of eggs against a maximum of 12 normally produced through egg freezing.

Some world-renowned fertility specialists in America claim the success rates are higher than  for IVF.

Dr Gedis Grudzinskas, a leading consultant in infertility and  gynaecology, is planning to open a clinic in central London offering the treatment within the next  six months.

He said: ‘This technology is so much more efficient than we thought it would be.

‘If a woman is having cancer treatment there are few options. She can freeze her eggs but the quality of this technology varies.

‘Women in their late 20s might consider freezing their eggs until they meet Mr Right.’

Once Dr Grudzinskas’s licence is approved by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority, British doctors will carry out the first operations under the supervision of an experienced team from Denmark. Some doctors believe that having the tissue removed early in life could impair a woman’s chance of having a baby.

Dr Gillian Lockwood of Midland Fertility Services, near Walsall, said: ‘In the case of cancer patients who’ve got nothing to lose it has great potential.

‘But for social reasons I don’t believe it should be recommended. It could cause scarring or damage to the pelvis that could make it difficult to conceive naturally.’

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Posted in: child birth news,Ovary freezing

Woman Gives Birth To Six Babies(sextuplets) In Northern Ireland

A woman has given birth to six babies at a hospital in Northern Ireland, equalling a British record set 26 years ago.

The sextuplets were delivered by Caesarean section at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast between 11.19am and 11.24am yesterday morning. They were said to be doing well despite being born 14 weeks early.

The births equal a record set by the Walton family in Liverpool in 1983, who had six girls. It is believed to be the first case of sextuplets ever recorded in Northern Ireland. Only one in around 4.5 million pregnancies result in sextuplets.

The four girls and two boys weighed between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz and were delivered by a team of 30 medics. All six were in intensive care last night, and their mother is said to be stable. The parents have not yet been named.

Dr Clifford Mayes, who helped to deliver the babies, said: "It is an extraordinary thing to have witnessed, but you are also struck by the fact that there are little babies in intensive care."

He added that staff at the hospital had been preparing for the birth for weeks, making use of technical experts from across Northern Ireland, and confirmed that the children were not conceived through IVF.

"We have planned very carefully for today and it went as well as we had hoped it would," he said. "The care of the babies would be the care we would normally expect for any baby. This is both a happy time and a potentially difficult time."

In 1983, Janet and Graham Walton had six girls, all of whom survived and are now aged 25. Four of them are still living with their parents in Wallasey, Merseyside. Yesterday, Mr Walton said he hoped the mother and father of the six children would "enjoy every minute" of parenthood.

"I would never offer anyone advice on how to raise their children, but as a father of sextuplets, I can say a sense of humour is vital," he said.

Patricia Denvir, the lead midwife in the operation, said the procedure had gone according to plan.

"It is a very stressful situation both for our staff ... and also for the parents, but it's a situation that went very well," she said. "Both parents were very composed and they dealt with it very well. It's a very emotional time."

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Posted in: child birth news,sextuplets,woman gives birth to six children