Web desk: Former tennis star Sania Mirza has revealed that she had her eggs frozen. She shared that the decision gave her emotional clarity and allowed her to plan for motherhood on her own terms.
“Not many people know,” she explained, that this decision gave her emotional clarity and future freedom.
Sania said a woman never truly knows when the desire for motherhood might return. For her, freezing her eggs was a way to respect that possibility without pressure. It allowed her to live life on her own terms.
The former tennis player said she reached out to Farah Khan, a close friend, when she decided to freeze her eggs. “I wanted to freeze my eggs. And I reached out to you and you connected me with your doctor…Dr Firuza Parikh,” Sania said in a conversation with the filmmaker.
On her YouTube podcast, Serving it Up with Sania, she said, “Not many people know I have frozen my eggs. I recommend it to everybody because the biological clock is ticking. Suppose you want another kid or something. I had Izhaan naturally, and then I froze my eggs after that.”
Many Others Like Sania Mirza
Many women choose to freeze eggs after naturally conceiving for the first time, as Sania Mirza did.
Maybe in Pakistan, some people see it as a taboo topic; however, this is a widely used procedure in the world.
Egg freezing, or “cryopreservation” if we use more scientific terms, can give a better chance of conceiving later in life. It is especially useful for women facing medical treatments such as chemotherapy, severe endometriosis treatment, or gender-affirming surgery.
It is also useful for women with health conditions such as autoimmune diseases that affect fertility.
Egg freezing, called oocyte cryopreservation, is available in Pakistan at fertility clinics as well. It allows women to preserve fertility for future use.
The process involves extracting eggs, freezing them at very low temperatures, and storing them for future IVF treatment.
Clinics in Lahore and Islamabad offer these services. Costs range from PKR 4 to 9 lakh for IVF, as per sources. Extra costs apply for freezing and storage.
According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK regulator, egg freezing cycles increased by 170 per cent between 2019 and 2023.
The technology has existed since the 1980s. It became more accessible in the 2000s with vitrification, a flash-freezing technique.
