The term 'Ice Baby' has developed a significant and serious meaning in the 21st century. Ice baby is the term given to a baby born from a frozen human egg.
'Egg freezing breakthrough will create generation of "ice babies" ... '
(The Telegraph, 9th October 2005)
The number of ice babies arriving in the coming years seems set to significantly increase with the development of a new procedure which overcomes the difficulties previously associated with egg freezing. Existing methods have run a major risk of damaging the eggs during the freezing process, but a new technique called vitrification, involving the use of a substance which acts as a kind of 'anti-freeze ', reduces the potential for damage and so substantially increases the rate of successful pregnancies resulting from fertilisation of frozen eggs.
Egg freezing started out as a process to assist women with fertility problems, particularly cancer patients wanting to protect their fertility prior to radiotherapy or chemo-therapy treatments. However more recent advances have made the ice baby an increasingly controversial concept.Very much improved success rates mean that there is now, unbelievably, the potential for women to choose conception dates which fit in with their career plans. Women in their 20s and 30s could store their eggs for future use, putting their fertility 'on ice ', and delaying motherhood until as late as their 50s.
The universal potential of egg freezing is huge on a par with the introduction of the contraceptive pill. It is predicted that within a year we will see the first ice baby born as a matter of lifestyle choice rather than medical necessity.
The story....
The term ice baby has appeared in the context of fertility treatment since the mid-nineties. Like the term test-tube baby, which first appeared in the seventies, ice baby is used to refer to babies born as a result of medical intervention which incorporates some kind of freezing process, whether of embryos, eggs or sperm. In 2002, a Manchester couple made history when an ice baby was born 21 years after his father 's sperm was frozen prior to cancer treatment as a teenager. In the same year, Britain 's first ice baby from a frozen egg was born.
With recent medical advances and the potential for egg freezing to be perceived as the ultimate kind of family planning, the term ice baby seems likely to enter mainstream use. We might also expect to see an increasing number of references to ice twins!
July 8 2006 |
