More women put motherhood on ice by freezing eggs to advance career and find 'Mr Right'

One IVF clinic has added 150 women to its books in six months - three times the number that freeze their eggs nationwide in an entire year.

At another chain of clinics, inquiries about the £2,500 procedure have jumped from one or two a year to around three a week.

The rise is attributed to a new technique which experts claim causes little or no damage to the eggs.

It is being seized on by women keen to delay motherhood until they advance their career - or simply find a suitable partner.

Doctors who once felt the unreliability of egg freezing meant it should not be offered to anyone other than cancer patients, if at all, have started to offer it routinely.

Some, however, caution that the process of collecting eggs is not without its dangers.

Drugs used to boost egg production can cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome - a potentially fatal condition - while the retrieval of eggs can be painful.

The Bridge Centre in London has frozen the eggs of 30 women since becoming the first clinic here to offer the Egg Vitrification Egg Storage technique in November.

Another 120 are part-way through the procedure or are waiting to start treatment.

To put the figures in context - in the past, around 50 women a year have frozen their eggs, country-wide.

Mohamed Menabawey, medical director at the Bridge Centre, said: "This is going to allow women to continue their career and still have a child at a reasonable time.

"It is going to have the same effect as the Pill in the 1960s - it is liberation for women."

Since introducing the technique, in which the eggs are dehydrated before being quick-frozen, a month ago, the Care chain of fertility clinics has received two or three inquiries a week.

Care managing director, Dr Simon Fishel, said schemes which cut the cost of the freezing to as little as £500 for those who agree to give some of their eggs to infertile women, have made the process more affordable.

But others warn not enough is known about the long-term health of babies born from frozen eggs.

Josephine Quintavalle, of campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "The natural place for a human egg to mature is in the body of a woman.

"This is very much a commercial initiative, women need to wake up and take charge of their bodies."

She added that readily available egg freezing could lead to more women having children while still single.

It was absolutely worth it for me

Helen Perry was the first woman in Britain to have a child from a frozen egg.

Her daughter Emily, now five, was 'in the freezer' for six months before being fertilised.

Mrs Perry, 41, chose the treatment after she and her husband, Lee, who have been together for 17 years, were unable to conceive naturally.

They were also unable to use the NHS IVF service as it involves producing more embryos than are needed - something to which she and Lee, both Jehovah's Witnesses, morally objected.

So, the couple decided to go to a private clinic and use 'natural IVF', in which individual eggs are fertilised one by one.

However, after Mrs Perry's eggs were collected, she was found to have hyperovarian stimulation.

The many extra eggs could either be thrown away or frozen until she was able to go ahead with the IVF.

Mrs Perry, from Shropshire, described the process of egg-freezing as an "emotional rollercoaster" cautioning: "It's not something you should go into unless you've really thought about it."

But she said she had no regrets about her decision. "I've wanted kids since I was little. It was absolutely worth it."