“The patients were calling us, but there was nothing we could do until the decree was issued. There, we can get started on Monday. So this is excellent end-of-year news. “ This is how Samir Hamamah, head of the reproductive biology department at the Montpellier hospital, describes the publication, on December 31, in the Official Journal, of the text specifying the “Procedures for authorizing self-preservation activities for gametes for non-medical reasons”.
→ REPORT. Infertility, when medicine is invited very early in the child plan
The method consists, for a woman or a man, in freezing her oocytes (ova or spermatozoa) at an instant T, to use them later – if necessary -, as part of a child’s plan. Until now, this self-preservation was only allowed for women for medical reasons (cancer impairing fertility, for example). The bioethics law of August 2021 removed this restriction.
A freedom for women and a tool against infertility …
“Self-preservation is justice for women, Estime Samir Hamamah. One of the main causes of infertility is the increasingly late middle age at which a first birth occurs. (1). Sadly, time is no ally for women’s reproductive health. The quality and the number of oocytes weaken from the age of 30 and turn red after the age of 38. ” The law provides that this self-preservation can be carried out from the 29e to 37e woman’s birthday. “It is therefore a safety net”, metaphorizes the doctor.
“It’s an additional tool to fight against infertility and that’s good, adds Virginie Rio, president of the Bamp collective, which brings together parents who have had recourse to medically assisted procreation (AMP). But we will have to be clear from the start of the process: this is not the miracle solution either. Women would be wrong to believe that because they froze their eggs at 30, they are guaranteed to have a child at 40. It doesn’t work that way. “
Virginie Rio recalls that during MPAs, the success rate remains low (around 80% failure per attempt). “If this information work is not done sufficiently during the preliminary interviews scheduled before the oocyte collection, there will be setbacks. “
A will of all might
Forget that science is not all-powerful: a possibility that would not surprise the philosopher Dominique Folscheid. “If I had to paraphrase a title by Michel Houellebecq (2), I would say that oocyte self-preservation is an extension of the field of technique on the female body. It’s paradoxical how, in this era fascinated by ecology and nature,at least when it concerns our external framework, we mean to go beyond the limits of our own inner nature, that is to say the limits of our own body. “
For the philosopher, critical observer of scientific advances, freezing the oocytes not only reflects a desire to control one’s body, but also “To master time”. We «are not masters of the biological clock of women? Never mind, we are going to make ourselves masters of the calendar by putting time in the fridge, he decrypts. We are in hyper control, planning everything. “
In Montpellier, Samir Hamamah shrugs his shoulders. “It’s not control, it’s prevention, retorts the biologist. Just in case. ” All the more so, he says, than an MPA “Is not really a piece of fun”. Virginie Rio confirms: “The procedure is heavy, restrictive, sometimes painful. “
In countries where self-preservation was authorized before France, professionals have observed that only a small percentage of these gametes were finally recovered: less than 10% of women would actually use their frozen oocytes. “Most of the time they have children naturally”, confirme Samir Hamamah.
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