5 Million Babies — and Counting! How IVF Changed Fertility
New reports from the International Committee for the Monitoring of Assisted Reproductive Technology noted that more than 5 million babies have been born due to alternative conception methods.
Since 1978, Richard Kennedy, a committee board member, noted, more than 5 million babies have been born due to advanced reproductive medicine — and IVF is among one of the leaders. In the last six years, more than 2.5 million babies have been born due to IVF. Kennedy said, “The number of babies born through Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is now about the same as the population of a U.S. state such as Colorado, or a country such as Lebanon or Ireland. This is a great medical success story.”
To give you an idea of the committee’s calculations: in 1990, an estimated 90,000 babies were born with the help of ART; in 2000, it was 900,000 and when measured in 2007, over 2.5 million births had taken place — which means that more than half of the 5 million ART babies were born within the last six years.
So why the spike in recent times? A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that in 2010, women tried donor eggs more than 18,000 times as a method of conception. Researchers noted that the 18, 306 IVF cycle attempts using donor eggs was up from 10,801 IVF cycles, which had been recorded 10 years prior.
The research also shows that the ART methods are helping more women conceive later in life. According to the most recent research, the average age of a woman using donor eggs to get pregnant was 41. The average age of the donor, 28.
Just goes to show you that alternative methods are the future of fertility — and they’re helping bring hope to families-in-waiting.
Did you use an alternative method to conceive?
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