More and more, women are having babies from frozen eggs. These frozen eggs might be the woman's own eggs she froze previously or someone else's eggs that were donated. Either way, the number of babies born from eggs that were previously frozen, then thawed and fertilized with sperm, is on the rise. Since we opened Olive in July 2013, we've had many babies born from frozen eggs and many pregnancies ongoing. What did we tell women about the health of babies born from frozen eggs?

Until this month, our only data came from our experience, and from extrapolating from frozen embryo data and a few small studies. This month, a large study was published in Fertility and Sterility that examined pregnancy and birth outcomes of women who used frozen eggs. The study compared 996 pregnancies from fresh IVF eggs to 804 pregnancies from frozen eggs. The frozen eggs were the woman's own eggs (100 pregnancies) or donated eggs (704). All eggs were frozen by vitrification (which is what we use at Olive). There were no differences in rates of pregnancy complications, preterm birth, or malformations or illness in the newborns. The only differences were:

• more c-sections in women using frozen eggs compared to fresh (68% versus 61%)
• fewer urinary tract infections in women using frozen eggs
• more amniocentesis in women using frozen eggs (29% versus 33%)

I know that fertility news is not always good, but it's always nice to have some reassuring facts to pass on. We will await longer-term studies on the outcome of these children but so far so good.

Reference: Cobo A, Serra V, Garrido N, Olmo I, Pellicer A, RemohÌ_ J. "Obstetric and Perinatal Outcome of Babies Born from Vitrified Oocytes." Fertil Steril . 2014 Oct;102(4):1006-1015.