Apple, Facebook To Women Employees: Keep Working, We'll Pay To Freeze Your Eggs

Photo Credit: BEN BIRCHALL / PA WIRE VIA AP FILEBy Chanelle Bessette.

Facebook and Apple AAPL have both announced an uncommon program to help their women employees lean all the way in. The tech giants will now cover the cost of egg-freezing treatments for women (and their male partners) who want to delay their family plans in favor of advancing their careers.

Facebook began their program in January of this year, and Apple will begin offering the perk in early 2015. The oocyte cryopreservation procedure currently costs an estimated $10,000, with an average additional cost of $500 per year to maintain frozen egg storage. The companies, NBC News reports, will each offer up to $20,000 for the procedure under their health benefit programs for fertility and surrogacy.

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Perk Up: Facebook and Apple Now Pay for Women to Freeze Eggs

By DANIELLE FRIEDMAN.

Two Silicon Valley giants now offer women a game-changing perk: Apple and Facebook will pay for employees to freeze their eggs.

Facebook recently began covering egg freezing, and Apple will start in January, spokespeople for the companies told NBC News. The firms appear to be the first major employers to offer this coverage for non-medical reasons.

“Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,” said Brigitte Adams, an egg-freezing advocate and founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com. By offering this benefit, companies are investing in women, she said, and supporting them in carving out the lives they want.

When successful, egg freezing allows women to put their fertility on ice, so to speak, until they’re ready to become parents. But the procedure comes at a steep price: Costs typically add up to at least $10,000 for every round, plus $500 or more annually for storage.

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