Egg freezing start-up provides back-up plan for hopeful moms

Global Business

There’s an growing industry for single women, who know they want to be mothers, but have yet to find would-be fathers. CCTV America’s Karina Huber reported from New York City about one start-up working to help women beat the biological clock as they wait for motherhood.

Egg freezing start-up provides back-up plan for hopeful moms

There's an growing industry for single women, who know they want to be mothers, but have yet to find would-be fathers. CCTV America's Karina Huber reported from New York City about one start-up working to help women beat the biological clock as they wait for motherhood.

Daniela Nuccio, a 36-year-old egg-freezing patient, has a backup plan for having babies.

“I was never one of those those little kids or girls that grows up thinking about their wedding day. I was actually the other. I wanted a career. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be independent, and before I knew it, I was 30,” she said.

That’s when she realized she wanted children, but she waited a few years before taking action.

“In between there was relationships that you think and hope are going to work out, but then don’t. Finally, when I broke up with my last boyfriend, I said it’s now or never,” she said.

Nuccio is part of a growing group of young single women freezing their eggs, a month-long procedure that consists of taking hormone injections to boost egg production and then retrieving them. When you factor in doctors’ fees, drugs and egg storage-costs can top $20,000.

Apple and Facebook are the first major U.S. companies to cover the procedure for their employees.

As the popularity of the procedure has grown, so have egg-freezing parties such as the one organized by EggBanxx, which links up potential patients with fertility experts and provides discounts on the procedure and financing.

The parties typically attract women in their early to late 30s. The average age of women freezing eggs is 37, but medical experts said the quality of a woman’s eggs drops dramatically after 35.

There is little hard data on success rates for egg freezing that produces viable pregnancies, but experts said new technology has improved a woman’s chances to have babies.

Gina Bartasi founded Eggbanxx, which launched last March. She said the industry is growing 45 percent year over year. She said egg-freezing is not about delaying motherhood, but rather creating a backup plan.

“Our goal with Eggbanxx is that it’s an insurance policy just like you would have fire insurance protection on your home or car insurance on your car. The goal is that you never need that insurance, but it’s there as an option in the event that you do,” Bartasi said.

Daniela Nuccio agrees.

“I still have that hope that someday. I’ll meet the one and if a few years pass by and I still haven’t then that’s the option, I’m going with. I have that option,” she said.