Eyvazzadeh, who calls herself “The Egg Whisperer,” is jumping on growing interest in preserving eggs in Silicon Valley, as some tech companies have decided to make the procedure a standard health benefit for a young workforce that is faced with the decision on whether to delay parenthood.
More tech companies are offering perks for parenthood in order to keep employees happy. Facebook already covers up to $20,000 for several procedures, including egg freezing, and also offers other benefits for parents, including giving $4,000 in “baby cash” for each child born. Meanwhile, Apple plans to include egg freezing and storage as part of items covered by its health insurance policy next year.
“They are bringing a lot of these women who are graduating from college with very high level coding degrees and they really want them to work … during their younger years, knowing full well that once they get a family, the pressure on them are very different,” said Tim Bajarin, president of advisory services firm Creative Strategies. “What this does is it gives these women another level of choice.”
Alec Levenson, a senior research scientist and labor economist at USC’s Marshall School of Business, called the egg freezing parties “innovative.” “It’s another example of what marketers have always known,” Levenson said. “If you can get people to refer something by word of mouth to friends and family, it’s a much more effective marketing method than trying to do something through general advertising.”
| Commentary |
Medical Director for the National Embryo Donation Center
Jeffrey Keenan, MD: “While egg freezing is medically indicated in
limited situations, such as prior to chemotherapy or pelvic radiation in women
who desire to maintain their fertility, marketing this service to women in their
20s who are in good health is inappropriate, in my opinion. I disagree with Dr.
Eyvazzadeh, that this is just ‘raising awareness.’ I believe throwing ‘egg
freezing parties’ is done to raise doubt, not awareness, in a
group of people who are typically unsure of exactly what their life will look
like in 10 or 20 years. Once doubt has been raised, and especially if your
employer pays for it, it’s an easy jump to freeze eggs ‘just in case.’“That translates into $15,000 for this physician’s practice and some good public relations. Profit and PR are often good things. But the problem with that approach is the great majority of women will never need or use those frozen eggs for a variety of reasons.
“There is a better approach. For younger women who have anxiety about their chances of eventually having a child, we offer a ‘fertility checkup’ to determine her relative fertility compared with her peer group. Then, we discuss her relational status, when she thinks she would like to conceive and how many children she’d like to have before even mentioning an expensive, invasive and (usually) unnecessary procedure like freezing eggs.
“As for the Silicon Valley companies that are offering this as part of employees’ health plans, I think the analyst in the article said it best—they are doing it because ‘once they have a family, the pressures on them are very different.’ In other words, the companies are doing this out of self-interest, although it is cleverly disguised as ‘increasing diversity in the workforce.’”
Resources
Assisted Reproductive Technology Ethics Statement
Dr. Jeff Keenan’s Interview about Egg Freezing Options
National Embryo Donation Center
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