Yahoo Lifestyle IVF WARNING: Expert tells single women to settle for Mr Not-Quite-Right
Single women in their 20s and 30s ought to think about settling down with Mr Not-Quite-Right rather than freezing their eggs and hanging out for "the one".
Director of Monash IVF Professor Gab Kovacs says that young women should not be thinking that freezing their eggs meant they had a "guaranteed family in the fridge".
"I think they should be working harder to find a partner or changing their criteria for Mr Right," Professor Kovacs said.
"Maybe there is no Mr Right and you have to settle for Mr Not-Too-Bad. There is no such thing as a perfect person for anybody, and even if they're perfect now, they won't be perfect in five or 10 years’ time."
Some fertility clinics have been marketing this service – which costs between $10,000 and $14,000 per cycle and isn't refundable by Medicare - to young, single women, but Professor Kovacs warns the success rate is low and women won’t be able to rely on it later in life.
Recent research has suggested single women are leaving it too late to freeze their eggs – most women are in their late 30s by the time they go through the process for social reasons, by which time their eggs weren’t of great quality.
Roger Lobo, president of the ASRM and head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Columbia University in New York, says this is indicative of delaying motherhood.
"Despite increasing numbers of clinics offering the procedure and the significant media attention paid to it in recent years, women are not pursuing elective egg freezing at an age when it would be most likely to help them accomplish their fertility goals," he said.
"It is apparent that patients need more education about their fertility at younger ages."
What do you think? Do you think women need to be less fussy about their choice of partner? Or do you think men are the ones who delay fatherhood, and women don't have as much control over the process as everyone makes out?
Watch video:
RELATED LINKS:
