5 Million IVF Babies by Lee Trask/Infertility Blogger: at DailyStrength Doctors and Advisors

Lee Trask is an advocate for women dealing with issues of infertility and miscarriage. Having struggled through more than six years of infertility, three miscarriages, and high-risk pregnancy, she is now happy raising her two…

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5 Million IVF Babies

Posted in Pregnancy After... by Lee Trask on Aug 22, 2012

I remember when the very first baby was born to one of our members that had joined DailyStrength after her second miscarriage. Her name is NeedHope, and she is the mom of Jordan, who was born in October 2007. DS had just started, and there weren’t that many members in the miscarriage group. We were tight-knit, and communicated often. When NeedHope had her baby, we were all so happy! She not only gave birth to a healthy baby, but she also gave birth to hope for all the women in the miscarriage community, proving that there were happy endings.

I had nothing to do with her story, other than having been there to listen and comfort and talk, in the months after her miscarriage, and the anxious months during her pregnancy. But I felt a personal connection, and felt that DS had played some part, no matter how small, in helping. If that tiny connection made me feel that happy, I cannot imagine how the pioneers of IVF must be feeling right now. Experts estimate this summer, 2012, the five millionth IVF baby will be born.

The first “test tube” baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978, and since then, the committee ICMART (International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies) has been tracking the number of transfers and births from IVF and ICSI. ICMART estimates that as many as one and half million ART cycles are performed every year, and that approximately 350,000 babies a year are born from those cycles. As the technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated, and success rates rise, there may be a capping point. It appears that the percentage of success from a single fresh treatment cycle has stabilized at about 32 percent, and this has remained consistent since 2008.

The need for multiple transfers has also dropped, due to more sophisticated technology. Fewer than three embryo transfers are being performed than ever before, resulting in a decrease in triplet and twin births from ART pregnancies.

I am grateful to those pioneering doctors and lab rats, to any creature who had a hand in helping those of us who needed medical intervention to help create or maintain our pregnancies. 5 million glasses are raised to you!

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