Egg freezing: more and more centers authorized, but waiting times still long

Ten days ago, Health Minister Catherine Vautrin announced that 30 egg freezing centers would be opened by 2027. But in the past few months, the number of centers has increased significantly.

According to RMC, at least 11 centers have received authorization to open in the past year, half of them in the Île-de-France region alone, where the waiting times are the longest. Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Hauts-de-France, and Corsica are also affected. This means that, according to the data collected, there are now around sixty centers authorized to freeze eggs in France, both public and private.

This is good news for people who wait an average of 13 months for a first appointment. It's also good news for fertility center staff, whose core business is not to freeze eggs, says Dr. Gwénola Kéromnès, head of the fertility center at the Diaconesses Croix Saint Simon hospital group (Paris). "We're here to treat people who are sick."

This is not the case for women who come for freezing: they want to preserve their chances of becoming mothers in the future. More centers would therefore allow for a better distribution of the workload, confirms biologist Pierre Sanguinet.

But things aren't moving fast enough for Professor Samir Hamamah, author of a report on infertility. He insists: "We simply need to authorize all centers that want it. Private or public, we don't care; what matters is that we shorten the waiting list."

A goal shared by the minister: Catherine Vautrin hopes that all private centers will be able to apply for authorization. The project will be reviewed in 2026 during the next bioethics law.