Chinese women are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon of freezing their eggs or embryos.

File photo shows patients were waiting outside the clinic of the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital. [Photo: Beijing Youth Daily]

Freezing embryos is starting to be a fashion in China.

China's second-child policy, along with the shift in the concept of reproduction, fuels the freezing embryo trend.

Older couples are able to thaw their embryo when they feel ready for a second child.

By August, Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital thawed over 2,000 frozen embryos within the year alone, up by 50% year-on-year, a Beijing Youth Daily report stated.

A 41-year-old lady became pregnant through embryo transfer, using the embryo she froze in the hospital 11 years ago included the report.

As Chinese women embrace this reproductive technology, it allows them much more control over their career-family life than previous generations.

Freezing embryos allow a woman to have her eggs extracted which will be bred to an embryo in test tubes and then freezes in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degree Celsius.

When the woman wishes to have children later, the frozen embryos can be taken out, thawed and transplanted in her uterus.

Similar to the technology to freezing embryos, a growing number of single Chinese women are heading overseas to freeze their eggs, thinking it will keep their future options open and control the pace of their lives, states a recent New York Times report.

Most of these women are in their 30s, are affluent and well-educated says the report. As it is against the law for single or fertile women to freeze their eggs in China and with better technical advances, these women are looking abroad for the options.

Both technologies are helping women who are torn between a career and a family to have an option in the future.

"Freezing eggs" became a catchphrase in China in 2015 as actress Xu Jinglei announced that she had frozen her eggs in the US. This idea spread in China and attracted more and more Chinese women to the trend, including those who want to both "lean in" in their career but also have a happy family life.

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