In early September, the Spanish Football Federation announced that it had reached an agreement with a fertility clinic allowing female national team players, referees and employees to freeze their eggs so they would not have to take long breaks from their careers to give birth.
The news was welcomed by several Spanish players.
Stars Olga Carmona and Patri Guijarro said in a joint statement that they were happy about the agreement.
“We can freely choose how we want to become mothers,” they said.
Can feel stress
Swedish national team center back Amanda Ilestedt agrees with the Spanish stars.
I think it’s a good idea. You choose what you want to do, she says.
I know many players who have already done it (frozen their eggs) privately. So I think it’s a good thing that the association is providing the opportunity.
Ilestedt gave birth to a daughter in August 2024 and says female elite athletes may feel stressed about combining their careers with starting a family.
“You want to focus on your sport and achieve your goals while also having a family. At the same time, you know it won’t get easier with age, so there can definitely be stress about it,” she says.
No guarantee
Critics of the Spanish federation’s offer say it could pressure players to wait until their careers are over before having children.
Angelica Lindén Hirschberg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Karolinska Institute and a gynecologist for the Swedish Olympic Committee, understands the argument.
“It’s sad that female athletes should have to wait until after their careers to have children. I would rather see it be possible for female elite athletes to have children during their careers, especially if they have a secure financial situation,” she says.
Hirschberg also wants to point out that freezing eggs does not guarantee that someone will have children in the future.
“You shouldn’t be lulled into believing that it guarantees children. Egg freezing has generally become more common in society, and we’ve seen companies in the US offer similar options to the Spanish one. It’s easy to think that it’s like life insurance, but it’s not,” she says.
Amanda Ilestedt hopes the Spanish players do not feel pressured to wait to start a family.
It’s up to each person when or if they want to have children, she says.
Freezing eggs is a multi-step process that takes about two weeks from the start of hormone stimulation.
Once the eggs have been retrieved, they are frozen in liquid nitrogen at -176 degrees in less than a second. The frozen eggs can be stored for many years without any deterioration in quality.
When a woman wants to use the eggs, they are thawed and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory (IVF/ICSI). The resulting embryo is then placed in the uterus.
Source: Stockholm IVF
