now when and if you decide to start a
family is a very personal thing so here
with information on women's reproductive
health in ways we can increase your
chances of getting pregnant if you want
to do that please welcome dr. Marjorie
dicks because it comes up again and
again and again and I know so many
people that are struggling with
fertility and it's the sort of
conversation that you need to start
having so young younger than you might
think
absolutely positively right so let's
talk about egg health in general what
we're looking at in terms of age and how
to make sure you have the optimal eggs
okay cool so I often even to medical
students when I'm teaching I say ovaries
are different than testicles which is
the author yes but a freezer egg storage
units so we are born with a certain
number of eggs and we deplete them over
our lifetimes actually the maximum
number of eggs we ever have in our
ovaries is when we're in utero in our
mothers bellies that at four months of
gestation so by the time you've hit the
earth
you've already depleted your vein
baskets down to a million eggs by the
time you get your first period down to a
million eggs by the time yeah your boy
then by the time you get your first
period you're down to about 400,000 okay
you should all ate about 400 times in
your life yeah and by the time you get
to menopause which is like 50 when
you've about a thousand eggs left but
they're not very good Oh had the same
eggs that were on the shelf in your
mother's belly are the eggs that you're
ovulating no oh so you make that first
batch and you don't make anymore batches
so don't feed to a banana yet oh okay so
that's why it's so important for people
to understand that by the time you're 35
you're considered advanced maternal age
yeah so that means that the quality of
the eggs is really at a point where it's
hard to fertilize it's harder to get
pregnant your risk of miscarriage is
greater which is why it's so important
to talk about what can you do to
preserve your fertility or to understand
what your fertility is so that you can
give yourself options young okay so that
means in your 20s when your eggs are
ideal we're made of babies 15 to 21
between 15 and 21 yeah I know not that's
not convenient looks like I know
Ben Affleck's I just want to be in grade
11 I don't want to have a baby and
that's that's when you have the optimal
yeah the optimal time and you know I
think I should say to God I'm not
recommending the 15 to 21 but there
aren't things that twenty to thirty year
olds can do
why does educate themselves about the
lifespan of their eggs because that's
when they're ideal mm-hmm and that's if
you're just trying to get pregnant in
your 20s it's probably the easiest for
you to get pregnant
yes but if you are getting a career yes
if you are getting educated if you're
not partnering with the first schmuck
that you meet yeah if you actually want
to like the person you partner with if
you want to travel and emigrate to a
different country and look at
opportunities for your career be
socioeconomically stable buy a house you
have options and people need to
understand the best time to explore
those options are in your 20s and early
30s what kind of options do you have
that option is to freeze your egg freeze
them so you can cryopreserve EXO until
2013 we didn't have a good way of cry
preserving the egg so we didn't know how
to make them last long in a freezer yeah
and then when we would warm them and
fertilize them we weren't very good at
making babies from them so now we have
something called vitrification which
allows us to rapidly flash freeze eggs
and we can keep those eggs a long time
okay and the quality of the eggs are is
only as good at the quality as when you
freeze them so if you freeze them when
you're 21 to 26 yeah those are generally
good quality eggs okay freeze them past
35 they're not very good quality so
people need to look at if so you don't
want to have a baby that's fine yeah but
if you do and having a family is
important these are options that are
available and accessible to women in
North America globally mm-hmm and this
is an option for it can we talk about
money then because the problem is when
you're a 21 year old you're thinking
maybe about tuition yeah the amount of
money it will cost to freeze these eggs
and how that process work so how much
does it usually cause so it's usually
somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 dollars
her per frozen batch or per frozen a and
that's an excellent question so it's
four per frozen batch and it's important
to know that not every woman's created
equal so we can stimulate someone take
eggs out and only get
in that batch burn another woman we
might get 20 eggs in a batch and ideally
to have enough eggs to feel comfortable
that when you come back when you're
ready
if you ever already and don't just have
sex and get pregnant yes we want you to
have somewhere between 18 to 30 eggs
frozen so some woman may need to freeze
multiple times to get enough of a batch
and to go on with peace of mind I have
an insurance plan but another woman
might just need to have one side little
vague free thing and for some women it
might not even be an option because
sometimes even early on we find out that
the quality of someone's eggs it's less
than we would anticipate would you know
that right away you would have an idea
of it so women should have an egg health
check oh and their 20s the thursday knew
that hot that existed why we're talking
okay you can go to your family doctor
you can go to a primary care provider
and you tell you say I just want to have
an egg check I want to know about my egg
health it's blood test you can do an
anti-mullerian hormone known as an AM H
a day 3 FSH and an ultrasound that's
called an antral follicle count so it
just looks at you baseline yeah it's
just looking at where you want as a
capture in time it doesn't tell you
where you'll be in five years it don't
tell you where you're in ten years it
tells you where you are then yeah if
you're a candidate for freezing if
you're interested in it or if you have
stupendous ovarian reserve and you're
like I just want to know where I was at
and I'm not quite ready to freeze I'll
freeze my eggs when I'm 28 if if I still
look okay right like it allows people to
make a plan we plan everything in life
mm-hmm and I think that it's important
for women to have the conversation to
empower themselves to plan their family
building if you don't want to have a
baby again that's fine you don't wanna
have a family ill dot whatever you want
to do but what I despise is when I see
you know well-spoken professional women
in their late 30s early 40s who are
saying I wish someone had said this to
me earlier yeah I didn't know so now
we're having the conversation when you
freeze the eggs do they stay at that
same level of health from a moment
there's frozen to the moment you want to
use them for yes so they're true that's
why it's so important to freeze sooner
rather than later
so they're gonna stay at that house yeah
21 year old health or that 22 year old
health yes important for people to know
that where you freeze her eggs matters
so the quality of your lab technicians
who are involved you have to ask the
questions of the place are being
referred to do you do this on a regular
basis when you warm an egg how likely
are you to be able to fertilize it like
those are very not every egg freezing
program is created equal so it's
important to ask those questions as well
and do you have to pay to store those
eggs you yes you do so there's an annual
fee that's liquid nitrogen that keeps
them frozen there's a it's nominal it's
like in about three hundred four hundred
dollars like a month or a year oh no not
a month that would be like storage
containers where you put your furniture
it's a little bit we're gonna talk
science since half it's a little bit
different they're liquid nitrogen there
and straws they're all identified that
we have like barcoding lettering colored
like I know it's listen if I was a
millionaire I would just i'd have eight
of them eight babies hey but you don't
need you know no baby and I would and I
wish I would have known this information
because there are a lot of young people
that you know or people that are my age
now that didn't know that and then we
didn't take precautions we might have to
do a better job because we're not
letting young women know what their
options are so that's why it's great
we're having a conversation today good
doctor Marjorie thank you so much
