IVF fun facts and promising statistics!

What do you really know about IVF? When was the first IVF child born and how many IVF cycles are done globally each year? Here are the IVF facts every IVF warrior should know about.

Why it’s called IVF

IVF is an abbreviation that stands for In Vitro Fertilization and can be translated into “fertilization in a glass” as “In vitro” is Latin for “in glass”. IVF is therefore also called test tube fertilization. In an IVF treatment, eggs are retrieved from the woman, and then combined with sperm and fertilized outside the body.

Brief IVF history

• IVF is the most successful and most common treatment option for involuntary childlessness.
• The pioneer in IVF, Robert Edwards, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2010
• The first IVF child was born in England in 1978.

IVF around the world

• 1 out of 6 couples in the world suffer from infertility
• It is estimated that more than 8 million children have been born in the world (statistics from 2018) with the help of IVF and other advanced treatment options for infertility.
• Every year more than 2 million IVF cycles are carried out in the world.
• Some researchers believe that it may be more than that, as there is probably a large number of unrecorded cycles. For example in China and India, statistics on IVF cycles are not as easily accessible.
• Spain is the country in Europe with the most IVF cycles in 2015, they reported 119,875 cycles during that year. Russia follows with 110 723 IVF cycles, Germany has 96 512 IVF cycles, France has 93,918 cycles and the UK 60,000 cycles per year.
• In comparison, the United States had 263,577 (2016 statistics) cycles performed at 463 fertility clinics, that is, around 600 cycles per clinic
• The 263,577 cycles in the United States resulted in 76,930 births, that is, about 30% led to a child (but keep in mind that this is an average across all cycles – it often takes several attempted IVF cycles in order to conceive)
• While the number of pregnancies with IVF has increased, the number of multiple pregnancies with IVF, for example twin pregnancies, has decreased to 14% in 2015. The goal is to reach 10%. This is because you are automatically classified as a high-risk patient if you are pregnant with more than one fetus so it is less and less common for clinics to implant more than one viable embryo at a time. Being pregnant with twins or more fetuses carries increased risks compared to a pregnancy with one fetus.

More than half a million children are born in the world annually through IVF and other advanced treatment options for infertility.

Success in IVF

• In Europe, approx. 36% of all embryo transfers (both IVF and ICSI) result in a successful pregnancy
• In 1990 a 15% success rate used to be good news
• Today (2020), competent clinics say that a 40% success rate is a good result for patients with good a prognosis
• Egg donation treatments and freezing eggs have become much more widespread
• At the same time, the chances for a successful frozen embryo transfer have increased with the advancement of technology
• More than half a million children are born in the world annually through IVF and other advanced treatment options for infertility.

More IVF Articles

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IVF fun facts and promising statistics!
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Male fertility evaluation – A step-by-step guide
Female fertility evaluation – A step-by-step guide
The first step before IVF – The Fertility Evaluation