Health Canada will be reviewing the practice of freezing a woman's eggs for future use, according to a newspaper report.
The reproductive technology will be among those that will have to be licensed.
A Health Canada official told The Globe and Mail that egg freezing would be considered a "controlled activity" under the 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction Act.
If the agency concludes, upon closer scrutiny, that the technology is still "somewhat risky," it could curb the number of clinics licensed to freeze eggs.
Regulations are under development, Health Canada senior policy analyst Francine Manseau told The Globe.
The rules will be enforced by Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, a federal agency that regulates the country's reproductive technologies.
Egg freezing is being considered an inevitable reality in the modern era, the newspaper reports.
An article published Friday in the journal Science called "Melting Opposition to Frozen Eggs" notes that: "A typical man has almost a lifetime to become a father, but a woman's reproductive prime lasts only a decade or so--and coincides with the critical time for getting an education and establishing a career."
The debate over egg freezing has heated up recently.
A team of McGill researchers has announced they have begun the process of freezing a Montreal woman's eggs to make them available to her seven-year-old daughter, who has a medical condition that threatens her fertility.
Melanie Boivin, 36, has frozen her eggs for her seven-year-old daughter who has Turner's Syndrome, a genetic condition that will not allow her to have her own children.
But Margaret Somerville, who heads McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, says the procedure raises important ethical questions.
"What are the rights of a child not to be brought into existence in this way?'' Somerville told The Canadian Press in an interview.
"I think here there was a lot of good intentions . . . but we also have to ask about that future child.''
Boivin is in the midst of an intense three-step procedure at Montreal's Royal Victoria that is expected to be completed by the summer.
With files from The Canadian Press
