What is egg freezing, procedure that helped Priyanka Chopra become mother?

Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas opened up about her egg freezing in her early 30s as her mother Madhu Chopra, who is an obstetrician-gynaecologist, advised her.

"I felt such freedom, I did it in my early thirties and I could continue on an ambitious warpath, I wanted to achieve, and I wanted to get to a certain place in my career," Priyanka, who welcomed her first child Malti Marie via surrogacy in 2022, told Dax Shephard on the podcast Armchair Expert.

Priyanka Chopra, married singer Nick Jonas in 2018, and welcomed daughter Malti Marie Chopra Jonas in 2022 via surrogacy. Chopra also said that she believes the biological clock is real and freezing eggs is a way to take power from it. 

"Also, I had not met the person I wanted to have children with. So, with that anxiety-inducing, and with my mom who is an ob-gyn going, `Just do it`," she added.

What is Egg Freezing?

Egg freezing Also known as oocyte cryopreservation is a scientific process that offers women reproductive freedom by allowing them to plan a baby at their preferred age while freezing their eggs at the optimal biological age. The process involves stimulating a woman's ovaries with hormones, retrieving viable eggs through transvaginal methods, and subsequently freezing and storing them.

Unfortunately, Indian society is largely unaware of the decrease in ovarian reserve and decreased chances of pregnancy as age advances. The unplanned postponement of pregnancy can increase the risk of infertility, adding to feelings of guilt, frustration, and agony. While sperm freezing and banking are parallel processes, egg-freezing science has lagged behind due to the large size, more fluid content, and specific chromosomal arrangement of eggs.

The process begins with fertility assessment and consultation followed by the extraction of the woman's eggs and cryopreserved at -196c temperature using an advanced freezing technique called Vitrification (flash freezing). Then followed by ovarian stimulation, whereby a woman is given injections to make multiple eggs in her ovaries. The eggs are retrieved at the correct time and cryopreserved using Vitrification. The eggs are then stored under liquid nitrogen till the time of their use. 

(With inputs from ANI)