$130,000. That’s the estimated cost of freezing eggs or ovarian tissue for the sole purpose of delaying childbearing for social reasons, according to a new analysis.
The figure, reported by a University of Illinois at Chicago researcher, stems from an analysis of the cost of fertility preservation -- freezing eggs or ovarian tissue – a technique originally developed for women undergoing medical treatments that can affect their fertility.
But fertility centers are increasingly offering the service to women who are "trying to create a backup plan for delaying pregnancy," said Dr. Jennifer Hirshfeld-Cytron, who calculated the cost in a study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
The cost-per-live-birth calculation is based on a 25-year-old woman who wants to delay childbearing until age 40 – and then undergo in vitro fertilization, using either the frozen ovarian tissue or frozen eggs.
“We found, in order to create one additional live birth with the mechanisms of freezing either ovarian tissue or freezing eggs, it would cost society an additional $130,000," said Hirshfeld-Cytron, director of the fertility preservation program at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System.