'Freeze ovaries for childbirth in later life'

Young women should have small sections of their ovaries frozen so they can avoid problems if they choose to start a family in middle age, a leading surgeon has said.
By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent
28 Oct 2010

The technique could potentially give a 40 year-old the fertility level of someone half her age, said Dr Sherman Silber, who carried out the world's first whole ovary transplant in 2007.

Thin slivers of ovaries containing tens of thousands of eggs can now be surgically removed and frozen indefinitely, a procedure costing about £4,000, Dr Silber said. Removing a one millimetre-thin graft had no effect on a woman's chance of conceiving naturally in the meantime if she so chose, he added. the rest

To date his team in St Louis, Missouri, has removed ovarian grafts from about 140 women. The procedure was developed as a way of preserving the fertility of women who had to undergo cancer treatment. But Dr Silber said increasing numbers of women were coming to him solely because they wanted to delay motherhood. About 60 of the women have had ovarian grafts to fit in with their way of life.