Longer Hong Kong storage time for eggs, sperm and embryos unlikely to boost birth rate, say reproductive medicine experts

An extension to the storage times for eggs, sperm and embryos in Hong Kong from 10 to 55 years would not help to increase the city’s birth rate, experts have said. They explained on Friday the suggested new timespan was “unrealistic” and not suitable for Hong Kong. Professor Ernest Ng Hung-yu, the former head of the division of reproductive medicine at Queen Mary Hospital, said the extension, proposed by lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, would have little effect on tackling the city’s low birth rate because there was no real demand for a storage period of more than 10 years. Ng explained that most people who stored reproductive material would use them within four years. “There are indeed people who may wish to freeze them for more than 10 years, but it is not the major problem,” he said. “We do not recommend women to bear children at an older age, which will increase the risks of complications such as post-partum haemorrhage.” He was speaking after Ip, convenor of the key decision-making Executive Council and New People’s Party chairwoman, suggested the change should be included in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s second policy address, expected to be delivered in October. Ip on Thursday told the media that the proposed extension would increase flexibility for couples to have children. She added her proposal was in line with Britain, which in 2022 increased its storage period from 10 to 55 years to allow people more control over child-bearing. Childless Hong Kong couples double in 5 years as births drop below 1 per family Hong Kong’s 10-year maximum storage period can cost up to HK$200,000 (US$25,500) in some clinics. Ip’s proposal came after the Family Planning Association warned that the number of childless couples in Hong Kong had reached an “alarming” level. The average number also dropped to a record low of 0.9 per couple. The latest census statistics also showed that only 32,600 new births were recorded in the year to June, down from 35,100 over the same period last year. But Ng said the present maximum was sufficient for those undecided about their fertility plans. He added that 55 years would be too long for anyone who wanted to use their own reproductive material. “10 years is already very long. If the patients really hope to bear children, they would have done it within 10 years,” he said. “If a patient would like to have children, they would not wait until they are too old.” Ng said if freezing centres had lost contact with the patients over a long period, the accumulation of unwanted material might cause storage problems. But he added that a longer storage limit could be useful for young cancer patients, who might lose the ability to have a natural childbirth because of their treatment. Dr Louis Chan Yik-si, an obstetrician & gynaecologist, added it was uncommon for patients to retrieve reproductive material after 10 years in cold storage and doubted the proposed change would be effective. Professor Celia Chan Hoi-yan of the University of Hong Kong’s department of social work and social administration agreed with the view that a longer storage period would not help to increase the birth rate. Chan, a specialist in fertility and infertility counselling, said overseas studies had shown that the usage rate of frozen eggs was as low as 10 to 30 per cent. Raise Hong Kong’s storage time for eggs, sperm and embryos to 55 years: Regina Ip “Our studies often find that whether people choose to have children is based on the socio-economic environment of society and their own economic situation,” she explained. Chan suggested that three free cycles of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment to couples with fertility problems might be more effective. She added there were more than one million embryos that no one would claim in countries overseas. “Religiously or ethically, some people may consider these embryos as lives,” she said. “There are a lot of debates over whether clinics could dispose of them.” Chan, also the coordinator in China and Hong Kong for the International Infertility Counselling Organisation, said the city had no centralised system for recording frozen reproductive material because they were stored in different clinics and medical institutions. “If the extension is implemented in Hong Kong, the government will need to seriously consider the monitoring of the storage system,” she added. She said that extending the storage period would involve ethical, physical, and psychosocial dilemmas and that the process was not just about money and couples’ preferences. Chan said she believed that the UK government had chosen to prolong the period to 55 years because egg, embryo and sperm donation were more common there. She added women in the UK could donate their eggs to storage banks, but Hong Kong did not have a similar system and people had to find donors by themselves. “The proposed extension may open another door,” she said. “Can we allow women to donate their unused frozen eggs to a bank for other couples to use? This can be an option.”