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Beating biological clock
Many women are turning to a controversial procedure to help them have children later in life
"...how urgent, she’s like, I knew nothing…"
On a weekly health and fitness radio show, Monica Adams talks to women about everything from spa treatments to sex.
"... talk about facials, I had caviar facial." But her fast-paced career includes three other jobs: a personal trainer, wellness advocate and morning traffic reporter.
"Well, For the most part, you are gonna get there on all highways but 70."
"Even though I love my career, that’s been the downfall."
Because at the age 37, she’s still single, but ready to have a baby. "Ideally, I would like to have two.”
As one of a growing number of women waiting until their mid-to-late 30s to have children, Monica decided to find out what her chances are of conceiving.
"You are losing eggs, a thousand a month or about 13,000 a year."
Doctor Sherman Silber runs the infertility clinic of St. Louis where he specializes in freezing women’s eggs.
"The slam-dunk thing to do is just to freeze your eggs and nothing twice about it."
The latest science called “vitrification” allows extracted eggs to freeze much faster which Dr. Silber says improves their quality considerably.
"There’s absolutely no difference. So we could freeze a 20-year-old’s eggs and twenty years later we could thaw them, do IVF with them and she has a pregnancy rate of a 20-year-old. "
But the procedure is not without controversy. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine still considers egg freezing an experimental procedure because of limited research.
"For that reason, it doesn’t feel that it should be offered or marketed to healthy young women as a means to avoid the consequences of advancing age.”
The society does support egg-freezing in cases where it’s medically necessary.
"It’s the ultimate gift of life."
Diagnosed with breast cancer last year at the age of 20, Melita Ramic ran the risk of becoming infertile from her chemotherapy treatments. When her cancer spread, she needed her ovaries removed to help her survive.
"So now it is about to expose the other ovary and fallopian tube."
"I might not plan to have kids right at this point of my life. But you have to take into consideration your future partner."
Today at least sixty healthy babies have been born in the U.S. using the updated egg-freezing technology. Critics consider that number too low to guarantee success and encourage extensive counseling before women decide to freeze their eggs.
Jamie Colby, Fox News.
facial: A treatment for the face, usually consisting of a massage and the application of cosmetic creams
caviar facial: 魚子醬面部護理
slam-dunk thing: 鐵定的事，板上釘釘的事
vitrification: 玻璃化，透明化
IVF: In Vitro Fertilization, 試管嬰兒
chemotherapy treatment: 化療
ovary: 卵巢
fallopian tube: 輸卵管
