Eggs and sperm can now be stored for up to 55 years – here’s what that means for donors and people seeking fertility treatment
By Caroline A. B. Redhead, Jackson Kirkman-Brown, Leah Gilman, Lucy Frith,
The Conversation
| 07. 04. 2022
The UK government has just extended the period that gametes (eggs and sperm) and embryos can be stored from ten years to 55 years. While this change will probably be welcomed by people who wish to have fertility treatment, it could have important implications for egg and sperm donors.
A growing number of people in the UK are choosing to freeze their eggs, sperm and embryos for use in their own fertility treatment. Previously, the storage limit was ten years – though extensions were permitted for people who could prove a medical need (such as premature infertility) up to 55 years.
But many felt that the storage limits restricted the choices of people who freeze eggs and sperm for their own fertility treatment. If they couldn’t give a medical reason to increase the storage period, these gametes had to be destroyed after ten years.
Cryopreservation techniques – which involve freezing gametes to preserve them – have also improved significantly since the previous storage limits were set. Studies now show that eggs frozen using current preservation techniques are likely to...
Related Articles
By Fyodor Urnov, Time | 08.12.2024
After a lifetime in the field of epigenetics, and nearly 20 years after my colleagues and I coined the term “genome editing,” I will be the first to admit that describing the “epigenome”—a marvelous biological process that guides...
By Azeen Ghorayshi and Sarah Kliff, The New York Times | 08.12.2024
An emerging movement against in vitro fertilization is driving some doctors and patients in red states to move or destroy frozen embryos.
The embryo migration is most striking in Alabama, where the State Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos...
By Gemma Conroy, Nature | 06.27.2024
Image by Robina Weermeijer from Unsplash
A molecular-editing tool that’s small enough to be delivered to the brain shuts down the production of proteins that cause prion diseases, a rare but deadly group of neurodegenerative disorders.
The system — known...
By Staff, AP-NORC | 07.12.2024
Image by Dr. Jayesh Amin from Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by-SA 3.0
Most adults support protecting access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a type of fertility treatment where eggs are combined with sperm outside the body in a...