UK Firms Consider Paying For Egg Freezing

British companies have said they would consider following Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) and Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) 's lead by paying for female staff to freeze their eggs.

With the US tech giants now offering the fertility treatment as a benefit, Sky News asked 18 city firms if they would consider providing the same perk.

Two said yes - Spacious, who provide office space, and the bike light company Blaze.

Its founder Emily Brooke said she would even like the option herself.

She told Sky News: "It just gives you a little bit more freedom and takes the pressure off later on in life.

"The women in my team are just as ambitious as I am, they work incredibly hard and I wouldn't expect them to take up the opportunity, I wouldn't want them to necessarily, but I would like them to have the option."

Two years ago Sarah Brocklehurst had her eggs frozen. Now (NYSE: DNOW - news) 43, she knows it isn't a guarantee she'll be able to conceive in the future but says it has given her a choice.

She said: "Just being able to freeze the eggs allowed me to take a little beat to relax, be able to look around sensibly at looking for a man that I wanted to be with, not just a man that I could have a child with, which is what I think - some women unfortunately fall into that trap.

"And also fix things like my career and my living situation. So I think it's the best thing I could have done really."

This week one of Europe's largest fertility clinics is opening on the edge of the city of London.

For £200 Create Fertility will offer businesswomen fertility tests in their lunch hour and the chance to freeze their eggs so they can concentrate on their careers.

But the centre's medical director believes all women over 29 should be routinely tested for free on the NHS to assess their chances of starting a family.

Professor Geeta Nargund said: "We need to be proactive if we want to help the nation's fertility in the long run and spend less in the long run on fertility treatments.

"We want to invest in proactive fertility screening on the NHS. Many times people say I wish I knew this, I wish I was able to find out about this five years ago."

With so many advancements in fertility treatments there are some who believe couples may be relying too much on science as a quick fix if they delay having a family.

Professor Melanie Davies from the British Fertility Society said "I know there are social pressures and I know that one has to find Mr Right but if you're in a good situation a good relationship the best advice is to get on and have children naturally

"That is far more successful than freezing ones eggs and more successful than having IVF at a later stage."

At a cost of around £7,000 for three rounds of egg freezing, women will need a decent salary or generous employer to pay for it, but all experts agree that age is still likely to be the biggest factor when it comes to a couple's chances of starting a family.