By Kate
Sheehy March 3, 2020 | 8:50pm
A top Manhattan fertility
clinic says it’s been inundated with women pushing to get their eggs harvested
and frozen — because of the coronavirus.
“Literally, the phone has
been ringing nonstop,” Dr. Brian Levine, director of CCRM Fertility NY, told
The Post on Tuesday.
The deluge of calls and
emails started Friday, with clients fearful about what the potentially deadly
contagion could do to them, their eggs and embryos and their partners’ sperm,
which they also want collected at rapid-pace, the doctor said.
“I was here till 9:30 at
night doing consults by phone and seeing patients,” said Levine, noting that he
usually leaves work no later than 6 p.m. “Yesterday, I came here at 7:30 in the
morning and did not leave till 8:30 last night.
“In the last five days,
I’ve seen at least a 25 percent increase in volume of people wanting to proceed
with treatment than any given time.
“They were on the fence
[about getting a procedure] — but this pushed them over.”
Levine said some women
who have been calling and emailing, tell him: “I was considering about doing
another cycle of egg-freezing or IVF, but I want to do it now before I get the
coronavirus.”
“People think it’s
imminent,” he said. “I tell people there’s no data to support there’s any
effect on pregnancy.”
He added: “It’s not like
Zika,” the virus that spread a few years ago that can cause certain birth
defects.
However, the unknown
factors about the virus is partly responsible for people’s concerns.
“I can understand
people’s fears,” the doctor said. “We don’t know anything about pregnancy” and
the coronavirus.
Anecdotal tales about a
few pregnant coronavirus victims have surfaced globally, although none
involving deaths or mother-to-baby transmission.
The CDC even admits on
its website that it has no reliable data on whether pregnant women with the
virus are more at risk of an “adverse outcome,” whether the bug can be
transmitted from mother to child or even whether moms-to-be are more
susceptible to getting it.
Levine said some clients
are in a race against the clock because they are telling themselves, “What if
there’s a six-month quarantine, and I’m 39 and will be 40 in six months?”
Others are even fearful
that because of the stock market’s downward spiral amid the
epidemic, their employer will cut back whatever fertility-treatment coverage it
provides them — and they want to get in under the gun.
Some couples have
predicted the fertility push and are simply saying, “I’ve been thinking about
egg-freezing and want to get plugged in before you guys get overwhelmed,” the
doctor said.
“My takeaway for everyone
is the same,” he said. “ ‘If you are considering going down this pathway, it
might be the time to investigate your options and do it sooner than later.
“We do know that if you
get the coronavirus, you need to self-quarantine, and that will preclude you
from going down any of these pathways.”
But he said he never
anticipated what is occurring.
“What I really thought
was going to happen was we’d be getting phone calls from people to move their
embryos out of New York. Like, ‘Get my eggs and embryos out!’ ” Levine said.
New York reported its first confirmed case Sunday.
Levine said the clinic
takes enough precautions to ensure no risk of transmission between any eggs and
embryos.
But if it turns out that
some eggs and sperm come in that are considered from a high-risk environment,
“We already have a plan about that,” Levine said.
“We’re going to have to
start quarantining these things in tanks.”
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