One million babies in the US born using IVF, other lab-assisted methods
At least one million babies in the US have been born with the use of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other lab-assisted techniques, a new report says.
The latest IVF and other assisted reproductive techniques (ART) report shows that nearly 68,000 babies were born using one or the other of the methods in 2015.
The first American IVF baby was born in the US in 1981. The world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born in Britain in 1978.
The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) said about 213,000 treatment cycles were tried in 2015, giving the methods an overall 32% success rate. But the number is probably higher than that.
The SART, part of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), reports data from its member clinics and has only been collecting that information since 1985.
The first assisted reproductive technique was IVF but there are now several different techniques offered at more than 440 clinics, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
For many years, fertility doctors would routinely transfer several embryos into a woman at a time, resulting in twins, triplets, quadruplets and more. Such multiple pregnancies are dangerous to mothers and babies alike and can result in premature births.
Now, groups like the ASRM strongly encourage fertility specialists to transfer just one embryo. They’ve got data to back up the reassurance that going just one at a time is every bit as likely to result in a live birth as transferring multiple embryos.
Still, only 34.5% of attempts used just a single embryo, SART reported.
“Fewer embryos transferred leads to lower incidence of multiple birth: 80.5% of babies born from 2015 cycles were singletons; 19.1% twins; and fewer than one-half of 1% were triplets (or higher order),” the group said.
More women are opting for frozen, donated eggs as well. More than 3,200 ART attempts used a frozen egg, the group said.
Age still strongly affects success rates. The success rate of 48% for women under the age of 35 and fell to 3% per try for women over 42.
