In vitro fertilisation is struggling to keep up with demand

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No other approach to assisting reproduction has had as momentous an effect. But as the demand for IVF grows alongside the expectations of it the technology is struggling to keep up

possible exception of Adam and Eve, all human beings born before 1978 were conceived inside a woman’s body. Today the world contains at least 12m people who started off in laboratory glassware. On average, four more are born every three minutes. That is a worldwide rate of roughly one newborn in 175.

birth will be nothing short of miraculous—leading them finally to have the child they could only dream of. Infertile heterosexual couples are not the only beneficiaries. Same-sex couples and single women can make use of to have children that are every bit as longed for. The technology is also a boon for people at high risk of passing on a genetic disease. Since the 1990s it has been possible to remove cells from an embryo developing in a dish and inspect theirfor a dangerous gene that one or both of the parents is known to carry.

In most developed countries and many developing ones women are postponing reproduction. In England and Wales the average age for a woman to have her first child is more than five years older than it was 50 years ago. In Shanghai the mean age is one year higher. In America one in five women now has her first child over 35, which in medical terms sees her classed as “geriatric”.

Like delayed fertility itself, this sort of “elective” freezing looks as if it could increase the size of themarket. Currently less than 1% of births, this could rise to as much as 10% in the places where it can be afforded. In a few it is already almost there.

 

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