Egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation or social freezing) didn’t begin as a lifestyle treatment to buy time for careers, getting more financially settled, finding the right partner or future family planning. Originally, egg freezing was (and still is) undergone by women having to go through fertility-threatening treatments like chemotherapy or radiation, to preserve the chance of having children after life-saving but ovary-damaging medical treatment (so called “medical freezing").
Only later did the technology expand to otherwise healthy women—those who want or need more time. Here are some of of the most common reasons for egg freezing other than medical freezing, aka “social freezing”: