Fertility preservation options for young girls

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Please note

This booklet is a shortened version of LN001652 ”Fertility preservation information for girls and young women. Information for patients, parents and carers” and should be supplied with it.

You can view it by following the link below.

Fertility Preservation Information for girls and young women

This booklet has been written to help you understand why you are being asked to think about putting some ovary (eggs) into the freezer. Please ask your nurse specialist or doctor any questions. We are here to help.

More information is available on our website:

Fertility services and treatments

What are ovaries?

Your ovaries are inside your tummy. They hold your eggs. Eggs are special as they are needed to have a baby of your own one day.

Illustration of a young girl imagining what her insides look like showing the womb where a baby grows and the ovaries where the eggs come from.

Some illnesses and some medicines can damage your eggs.

An illustration showing a young girl imagining what her ovaries look like with lots of eggs in them now and what they might look like after treatment when the number of eggs has reduced a lot.

When we are younger we don’t always know what we will think or want when we get older. As your treatments might take away this choice for you later on we can try to save some of your eggs now.

An illustration showing a young girl imagining herself pushing her baby in a pram in the future.

Freezing your ovary

You would need to have an operation for us to freeze some of your ovary.

An illustration showing a young girl in a hospital bed with her parents and the doctor standing next to her, caring for her.

A scientist will look after your ovary (eggs) very carefully and put them in a special freezer.

An illustration of a scientist standing over the freezer tank where eggs get stored.

What happens next?

When you wake up from the operation you might still feel sleepy and your tummy might be a bit sore. This will get better over the next couple of days. You can have medicines if you need them to help and you might have a little scar even when everything has healed.

The doctors will come back and speak to you and the grown-ups who look after you after the operation and check that all of your questions have been answered.

When you are grown-up and starting to think about having your own baby, we will see you again at the fertility clinic to talk about how we can help.

An illustration of the team of doctors, nurses and scientists who work in the fertility clinic who will be there to talk though the choices you have to try to start a family when you are ready.

Will this work?

You may never need to use the eggs we have frozen as you may be able to have a baby without any help from doctors and nurses. Treatments with frozen ovary (eggs) are still quite new and we cannot promise that they will work.

What happens if I say no?

This operation is not something that will help make you better at the moment but it gives you choices in the future.
The choice you make now is important as your eggs have to be frozen before you start any other treatment.
If you and the grown-ups who look after you decide that this is not what you want to do, that is ok and it will not affect the rest of your treatment.