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Egg freezing promises more time. But it comes with costs, uncertainty and unanswered questions.
Egg freezing promises more time. But it comes with costs, uncertainty and unanswered questions. Jennifer Lynn Salcedo describes egg freezing as “empowering” but says the treatment was physically and emotionally gruelling.
At Jennifer Lynn Salcedo's 36th birthday party, she made an unexpected announcement — she was going to freeze her eggs.
"I didn't realise how empowering it was until I told people that I was doing it," Jennifer tells SBS News. "I just never really spoke to anyone about actually doing it until I had my birthday ... and was like 'Hey, next week I'm starting this', and everyone just kept asking questions, everyone wanted to know, everyone was curious. " Salcedo says she had been considering egg freezing for around six years.
Assisted reproductive technology involves retrieving and cryopreserving mature, unfertilised eggs — known as mature oocytes — for potential future use.the potential to use younger eggs later. But experts say it doesn't guarantee a future pregnancy or birth, and success depends on factors including the woman's age when the eggs are frozen and the number of eggs stored. Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
For Salcedo, who says she has focused on her career in recent years and is currently single, egg freezing has provided an "insurance policy". I've got a lot of friends that are having children, getting married and ... it's something that I've always wanted to do. It's just not been where my life has taken me.
For women considering egg freezing, the decision can involve balancing age-related fertility decline with the treatment's cost, physical demands and uncertain chances of ultimately using the frozen eggs — raising questions about how much reassurance the technology can realistically provide. Australia's first baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation was born in 1980.
Today, ART is an established part of fertility care in Australia, with about one in 16 babies being born as a result ofShe sees women like Salcedo daily and says she also turns away some young women.
"For whatever reason, they've asked their GP to perform a test of their ovarian reserve," Hunter tells SBS News. "Then, they'll come in with that level, going 'I need to freeze my eggs'. some of them, I'll say, 'Actually, you're 25, your egg count is within the normal range, there's no hurry. Why don't you come back and see me when you're 30?
'" But a woman's egg count is only part of the fertility picture. Ovarian reserve tests can indicate the number of eggs remaining, but they cannot measure egg quality or reliably predict a woman's chances of conceiving naturally. A study led by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, published last year, analysed elective egg-freezing rates in the United States between 2014 and 2021.
It found the number of planned elective egg-freezing cycles increased from 4,153 in 2014 to 16,436 in 2021. Among women who froze their eggs between 2014 and 2016, 5.7 per cent returned to use them within the study's five-to-seven-year follow-up period. Hunter says it's unclear whether the amount of time an egg is frozen affects fertility.
We just don't have the large studies to be able to show that ... if you leave it frozen for more than five years, it's going to be significantly degraded. She says that's because data has historically drawn from the women who freeze their eggs for medical reasons, including women whosefrom treatments such as chemotherapy, making it difficult to apply some of those findings directly to women who freeze their eggs electively.
Dr Tamara Hunter says it's unclear whether an egg's fertility is affected by how long it is frozen. Source: Getty / Science Photo LibraryBut professor Georgina Chambers, director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit at the University of New South Wales, says modern freezing techniques have produced strong results for embryos.
"We get very good success rates from frozen embryos. How long can they be stored? We're not sure yet, but we know that with modern freezing techniques that are called vitrification ... the quality of those frozen embryos remains extremely high," she tells SBS News. The 2024 Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database report recorded more than 113,000 IVF treatment cycles in 2024, resulting in more than 20,900 babies.
It also found three in four IVF babies were born using frozen embryos, reflecting a clear shift towards frozen embryo transfers. Chambers says freezing embryos can allow a woman's body to return to a natural cycle before the embryo is transferred, which can improve treatment outcomes.
"We allow the woman's body to return to a natural cycle, where her endometrium is ready to receive that embryo, and we get higher success rates from that process. "with the total depending on what is included in the clinic's fee, as well as medication, anaesthetist, hospital and storage costs. YourIVFSuccess estimates elective egg freezing typically costs between $8,000 and $12,000 per cycle upfront, with additional annual storage fees. The cost of using the eggs later is separate.
The eggs must be thawed and fertilised to create embryos that are transferred to the uterus, creating further treatment and out-of-pocket expenses. Jennifer Lynn Salcedo says she also experienced a hormone "crash" after the egg retrieval due to a temporary increase in her estrogen levels. Credit: Jennifer Lynn Salcedo In September, Salcedo underwent her second egg freezing cycle via a private fertility specialist.
Working in the banking sector, she was entitled to five days of family planning leave but admits the process was physically and emotionally taxing. In my first cycle, I was just hungry, constantly hungry. I gained 7kg in that time from start to extraction, and I was like, 'Oh my god, my body's completely changed'. Egg freezing requires women to administer daily hormone injections for about two weeks to stimulate the ovaries.
The eggs are then collected during a procedure performed under sedation or anaesthesia. Luke Grzeskowiak is a practitioner fellow at Flinders University's College of Medicine and Public Health and recently published a study analysing almost 1.4 million health records for Australian women.in Australian general practice increased more than 13-fold between 2011 and 2021. Women aged 30 to 34 recorded the sharpest increase, with testing rates rising almost 20-fold.
AMH is often marketed as a fertility test or "egg count" because it provides an indication of ovarian reserve — the number of eggs remaining in the ovaries.
"AMH testing can tell you about the quantity of eggs remaining, and the largest predictor of that is really just age-related. So, as we get older, there's a natural decline in egg count," Grzeskowiak tells SBS News. The issue is it can't tell you anything about the quality, and it's really the quality that is the most important predictor of a potential good pregnancy outcome.
Grzeskowiak believes that rise in testing can be attributed in part to increased consumer marketing and ads about AMH.
"There's some interesting research that's published that's evaluated what's marketed around these tests, and what they find is a high level of misinformation around what AMH tests can and can't tell you and their usefulness or potential lack thereof," he says. What happens to frozen eggs that aren't used? We've got this unique irony where we're growing these banks of eggs, and at some point, there won't be enough room.
"So, we've got this opportunity then to talk to young women about, 'Well, you're not going to use them, would you consider donating them? '" she says. "In that space, there are a lot of ethical and societal challenges: how do we compensate women who've frozen their eggs and paid storage every year for 10 years? " Unlike IVF treatment for infertility, Medicare does not subsidise elective egg freezing for non-medical reasons.
Source: AP / Thanassis Stavrakis Some jurisdictions regulate storage and removal, including for donated gametes or embryos and in circumstances where a donor dies. Other jurisdictions, including the Northern Territory, do not have specific ART legislation.
"In Western Australia you can store them for 10 years and then beyond that we have to ask, 'Do you want to dispose of them ... do you want to donate them? '" Hunter says.following concerns about "safety, oversight and transparency" in the sector. The review followed two high-profile cases in which embryos were mistakenly transferred. In September 2025, the review released 10 recommended areas for reform, including changes to how ART services are accredited and regulated.
The Department of Health says the new national standards aim to better align with state-based legislation and regulation, including requirements for the storage and disposal of reproductive material. A transition to the new scheme is expected by December 2028, with the current regulatory framework to remain in place until then.
In a statement to SBS News, the National Health and Medical Research Council said it provides "ethical guidance for the use of ART in clinical practice and research" through its guidelines, which also set "out the ethical responsibilities of IVF clinics regarding stored gametes and embryos". However, the NHMRC said the regulation of ART clinical practice is a matter for state and territory governments.
"I think when I get to 40, I'll probably decide if I want to choose to be a single mum and do that, but I'm leaving that decision until later. "I think a lot of people start to lose hope, especially if you start to get closer to 40, but there are ways to achieve that. " Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional medical advice.
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