This is the year that IVF babies hit the five million mark. That’s an amazing number. Over five million babies born as a result of assisted reproductive technologies, mostly IVF and ICSF. Baby Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, was born in 1978.

Numbers increase each year

The total was figured from the number of IVF and ICSK treatment cycles recorded around the work up to 2008 – then an estimate of the numbers since then to present day. They can verify 4.6 million babies and estimates push the total to over five million. Each year 1.5 ART cycles are carried and they result in 350,000 births. The numbers increase each year. The two most active countries are Japan and the United States.

IVF firmly in the mainstream

“It means that this technology has been highly successful in treating infertile patients. The babies are as healthy as those from other infertile patients who conceive spontaneously. The technology is available globally in many different cultures. The major barriers to access are economic, and societal in some situations. With these accomplishments as a technology, and with recognition of Professor Robert Edwards as a Nobel Laureate, IVF is firmly established now in the mainstream of medicine,” noted Dr. Adamson, chairman of International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART).

Success rates are stabilizing

The success rate for a single treatment cycle of IVF and ICSI has stabilized around 32% pregnancy rate for each embryo transferred. The number has been about the same since 2008. Additionally, the number of embryos transferred has dropped. The trend is toward single egg transfers which have a higher success rate with fewer complications which come from multiple births.

Source: http://www.conceivingconcepts.com/news/female-infertility/five-millionth-ivf-baby-expected-this-year