Women's attitudes and beliefs about using fertility preservation to prevent age-related fertility decline—A two-year follow-up

Abstract

The health belief and transtheoretical model were used to describe how women make decisions about fertility preservation (FP) and identify factors that predict their decisions. Methods: This is a two-year prospective study with 107 childless women aged 30-37. Women filled anonline survey assessing individual factors, intentions to do FP, variables of the health belief model, FP decisional stage and FP behaviour. Results: Womens intentions, desire and number of children wanted decreased, fertility knowledge and perceived susceptibility to infertility increased and perceived severity of infertility decreased. A low number of women progressed through the stages of the decision-making process. Only 14% reached a decision and all decided not to do FP. Women's baseline intentions to do FP predicted their decision. Conclusion: Women at the optimal age range to do FP (28-35 years) do not engage in decision-making about it, which reflects their initial low intentions to do FP. Women's decision about FP is influenced by their perceptions about the technique. Pratical implications: Women with a high desire for parenthood and within the optimal age range to do FP should receive accurate information about it and could benefit from prompts to engage in active decisionmaking about doing it.

Oocyte or ovarian tissue banking: decision-making in women aged 35 years or older facing age-related fertility decline

“…Second, limited knowledge of the procedure and success rates of ovarian tissue banking were seen as barriers, whereas the success rate of oocyte banking was seen as a benefit. This reflects the importance of clear and correct information about fertilitypreservation techniques (Sousa-Leite et al, 2019). Many thousands of babies have now been born after warming of banked oocytes for several indications (Chian et al, 2014;Cobo et al, 2016).…”

“…After this, meaningful parts were further compared, and new sub-themes were added during this whole process. The HBM has been shown to be able to explain the intentions for the use of fertility preservation (oocyte banking method) for age-related fertility decline (Ter Keurst et al, 2016;Sousa-Leite et al, 2019).…”

Freeze the Biological Clock: Discrimination, Disrespect, and Fertility Preservation via Social Freezing

“…47 However, even if this is the case, this does not rule out that some women may greatly benefit from the techniqueand perhaps the proportion of women who will benefit can be increased through greater and earlier awareness of fertility-preserving options (rather than restrictions). 48 It is of course extremely problematic if the availability of social egg freezing gives women the impression that the chances of conceiving later in life are higher than they really are, especially if women pay a lot of money for the treatment based on unrealistic expectations. 49 This, however, does not seem to be a satisfactory argument for making the technology unavailable.…”

Feasibility and acceptability of psychosocial care for unsuccessful fertility treatment

“…Research suggests that patients are willing to discuss the possibility of treatment cycles being unsuccessful if it helps them prepare for this eventuality, 24 but discussing definite unsuccessful treatment may be far more challenging. Nonetheless, research also shows that patients lower their expectations when they progress through unsuccessful cycles 23 and revise down their parenthood goals (and desire) as these become less achievable 33,34 . Therefore, it would be expected that patients become more willing to prepare for unsuccessful treatment as they perceive that they are more susceptible to it.…”