Egg Freezing, Fertility and Reproductive Choice

Kylie Baldwin is Senior Lecturer in Medical Sociology at De Montfort University where she is part of the Centre for Reproduction Research. Her research explores the emergence and use of novel technologies concerned with fertility extension, fertility monitoring and genetic conservation. She has a particular interest in reproductive ageing and older motherhood.

Baldwin's book draws from an exploratory sociological research study which explored the accounts of 31 female users of "social egg-freezing". Her cohort was comprised of women who were either about to undergo social egg freezing or had attempted or completed the process. The term "social egg freezing" signals the socially constituted nature of this technology and demonstrates how women's use of egg freezing as a form of fertility extension and genetic conservation was inherently socially situated. She investigates the way in which users of this technology determine and negotiate their mothering desires, which are mediated and constrained not only by wider socio-political and market contexts but also by their intimate encounters with (non)reproductive partners. Baldwin reveals pressures and burdens that reproductive technology can place upon women to draw upon and navigate these technologies in the pursuit of greater reproductive choice and control and in the process of family building.

• Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Contemporary Debates in Social Egg Freezing Chapter 3. Timing Motherhood Chapter 4. Performing Parenthood Chapter 5. Motivations for Social Egg Freezing Chapter 6. The Experience of Freezing Eggs for Social Reasons Chapter 7. Negotiating Parenthood: Men, Intimate Relationships and Childbearing Chapter 8. Conclusion