Dr Sherman Silber said having an ovary frozen for future use for social reasons was a ‘realistic option’ and could be a solution to fertility problems caused by delayed motherhood among career women.

Women who did this in their 20s could look forward to the best of all worlds and would have their own young eggs in storage that were superior to donor eggs.

 ‘It’s very realistic,’ Dr Silber said. ‘Women can always have egg donation but this is so much nicer and more convenient if it’s safe. A young ovary can be transplanted back at any time and it will extend fertility and delay the menopause. You could even wait until you were 47.

Dr Silber, who transplanted a whole ovary from one identical twin to another last year, said: ‘The critical pay-off is the ability to remove the ovary and put it back again after storing it for ten to 20 years.’

Another advantage is that IVF is not needed once the ovary kicks in, just a ‘happy healthy sex life’, he added.

Shortly after last year’s breakthrough operation the 38-year-old ovary recipient, who is married to a Briton, conceived.

The German-born woman, who had been made infertile when her ovaries failed at the age of 15, gave birth in London yesterday.

Dr Silber, who addresses the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Francisco today, had given ovarian tissue transplants to nine twins previously, but the latest case was the first successful whole ovary transplant.

The vast majority of such transplants lead to a lifelong drug regime to prevent their rejection by the body but that is no bar to motherhood.

More than 2,000 women have had healthy children after kidney transplant, despite immunosuppressant treatment.

Dr Silber, who practises at the Infertility Centre of St Louis, Missouri, claimed transplants of ovaries – which contain a woman’s stock of eggs – could be a solution to worldwide fertility problems.

He said: ‘We are in the midst of an infertility epidemic. The real reason for the epidemic, which has become an enormous public problem, is that women have opportunities they did not before.

They do not want to commit to relationships until they are sure it’s the right one.

People are waiting until they are older to get married, they want the degree, money and a flat.

 ‘It’s the modern way. It’s not just England and the U.S. – in every society women are putting off childbearing.’

He warned: ‘All too often children are regarded as consumer goods to be fitted in when it is most convenient for their mothers’ careers, rather than as gifts to be loved and cherished.

‘Instead of tampering with how the human body has been designed to function, we need to start valuing motherhood properly again.’

A vitamin found in oily fish and eggs could improve fertility in some women, research presented to the San Francisco conference suggests.

Vitamin D helped to restore regular periods, thereby boosting the chances of conception, in women suffering ovulation problems or with polycystic ovary syndrome, a Yale University School of Medicine study found.

Source: DailyMail