Egg freezing: Impose age limit for getting pregnant with stored frozen eggs

Angelica Cheng

Active Member
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-impose-age-limit-for-getting-pregnant-with-stored-eggs

Forum: Impose age limit for getting pregnant with stored eggs

I refer to two recent Forum letters, "Egg freezing carries risks and has social implications" (April 8) and "Men can do their part to ease pressure on women considering egg freezing" (April 12), which focus on adult women and men when discussing the social implications of egg freezing.

It is critical not to overlook the welfare of the child, who has no choice or say on this issue.

In recent years, much media attention has been paid to elderly women successfully giving birth in their 60s and 70s.

What has been under-reported is the increased incidence of pregnancy complications in such older mothers which pose a severe risk to the life and health of the unborn child and would-be mother.

There is also the question of whether elderly mothers will live long enough to raise their child to adulthood, as well as doubts on the ability of older women to cope with the physical rigours of child-rearing.

Hence, it would be prudent to place an age limit on women using their frozen eggs, to protect the welfare of the unborn child.

This would be much better than just placing a mandatory limit on the storage period of frozen eggs.
If the mandated limit on the storage period is too short, it might discourage women from freezing their eggs at younger ages, to the detriment of their future reproductive success.

A suitable age limit for women to get pregnant with their frozen eggs could be either 50 or 55, which would give them more than adequate time to raise their child to adulthood.

Some may argue for an even older age limit, based on the latest life-expectancy of Singaporean women of 86.1 years in 2020, but this would exponentially increase the risks of medical complication in older mothers, and hence would contravene good medical practice and ethics.
 

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