More young women are considering freezing their eggs as a lifestyle choice, survey says

Young women are increasingly considering freezing their eggs as a lifestyle choice - rather than a medical decision.

A total of 84% of women aged 18-24 told a survey that improving career options was a good reason to freeze eggs.

And 59% said women should be encouraged to freeze their eggs to give themselves more "reproductive autonomy".

The survey, by Liminal Space, partly funded by the London School of Economics, found 20% would consider spending £10,000 on the procedure.

Despite the high price tag the number of frozen eggs which result in births are low.

A new egg-storage procedure, known as vitrification, is believed to have improved success rates but very few results are currently available.

Georgina Williams, 36, decided to freeze her eggs three years ago and was quoted £3,000 for the procedure.

But a week into the treatment she was told she wasn't responding to the drugs and needed to pay more to get an increased dose.

In order to get the optimum number of eggs she had to undergo an extra two rounds of treatment, pushing costs to £10,000.

She wants clinics - which may be motivated by profit - to introduce a code of ethics.

She told Sky News: "I cannot imagine what this would be like for somebody who can't afford to go through it again.

"Contrary to how I was feeling at the time, someone could be desperate to have children, they could have absolutely everything invested in this.

"It really worried me that people could be going into that with so little idea of how things were actually going to unfold."

The average age of women who are freezing their eggs is around 37.

According to Emily Jackson, professor of Law at LSE, women face a dilemma over when is best to freeze eggs.

She said: "It's better in terms of the technology to do it earlier - but of course if you do it earlier you're overwhelmingly likely to never use them because most women will conceive naturally.

"So there are complex odds for women to balance; if you do it too late it might not work, if you do it too early it might be a waste of money."

(Daily Mirror)