Embryo freezing

From our IVF fertility clinics in Cambridge, Colchester, Norwich and Wickford, embryo freezing treatment can help you to keep your options open for the future.

If you are facing medical treatment that could compromise your fertility, embryo freezing allows you to still have the option of having a child of your own in the future.

How does it work?

When fresh embryos are transferred during an IVF cycle, any additional embryos created – but not transferred – are often frozen.

However, what we mean here is a specific treatment that involves entering an IVF cycle with the express intention of freezing all the resulting embryos. These can be stored for your future use for up to 55 years.

Is it right for me?

If you’re a woman, embryo freezing may be an option when you’re facing surgery or cancer therapies that could affect your ability to produce healthy eggs in the future. Of course, there has to be enough time before these therapies begin to create the embryos, either with the sperm of your partner or a donor.

Our medical team at each of our clinics in Cambridge, Colchester, Norwich and Wickford will liaise with your specialist to ensure that the embryo freezing treatment is safe for you, and not detrimental to your medical condition.

If you are a man in similar circumstances, we recommend sperm freezing – a proven and successful technique that can be completed more quickly and is much easier for you than undergoing a full IVF cycle.

There may be other circumstances where embryo freezing is also appropriate, and you can discuss these with one of our fertility specialist doctors.

What next?

Your treatment cycle is exactly the same as it is for IVF. The only difference is that all your embryos will be frozen at the optimum time – an assessment made by our clinics’ embryologists – rather than transferred to your uterus.

If your embryos are frozen and stored by us, we’ll contact you each year and ask you to confirm your wishes for the next 12 months. If you wish to continue storage with us, there is an annual storage fee.