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The Phenomenon of IVF –
30 Years and 3 Million Kids –
A Testament to Success
By David Smotrich, M.D., Lori L. Arnold, M.D.,
and Diane Batzofin, MBA
Procreation is one of the most profound and universal of human desires. This instinct ensures the continuation of the species but it is also so much more. The image of a family is instilled in mankind as the epitome of what should be. However, for many this basic need is not easily achieved.
 In July 1978 Louise Brown came into this world and was celebrated as the first in vitro fertilization (IVF) baby. Her birth heralded a new era in helping people attain parenthood where before there was no hope. So here we find ourselves, three decades and three million IVF children later – a stunning affirmation for reproductive medicine and an impressive benchmark for the efficacy of IVF treatments.
During the past decade, the pace of both technological advances in reproductive medicine and the number of people seeking infertility care has grown dramatically. Today in the USA one out of every 100 babies born is from IVF. In 2006, the most recent year for which we have statistics, more than 120,000 IVF cycles were performed in the USA which is twice as many as a decade earlier.
Undoubtedly, some of this increase can be attributed to increased public awareness garnered from intense media coverage of new fertility breakthroughs. It seems as though every other day the media is showcasing some celebrity or other who are having babies with the help of fertility treatments—the proverbial Hollywood fertility baby boom.
It is estimated that approximately 10% of all couples of reproductive age will experience infertility at some time during their reproductive lives. This number seems to have stayed fairly stable across the years and amongst different cultures. In the past decade however, the universe of people seeking out and actually undergoing fertility treatments has increased dramatically. A portion of this increment is due to lifestyle changes both amongst women who are delaying childbearing until later in life thereby increasing their odds of having fertility problems and the expansion of same-sex and gay individuals availing themselves of reproductive treatments to enhance their chances of having a family. |
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La Jolla IVF’s mission is to provide the
highest standard of fertility care to all patients desiring such
care. In other words the center does not turn away patients. We
offer individualized, innovative, state-of-the-art treatment options
to patients while remaining committed to providing these technologies
at the most affordable prices possible. This philosophy ensures
treatment availability to the widest array of patients.
La Jolla IVF is committed to providing this care in a relaxing,
award winning facility which includes a state-of-the-art embryology
laboratory, an in-house operating suite, and a fully staffed
recovery area.
There have been incredible advances
in IVF therapy since the first days of the “test tube baby” ...
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Besides ICSI, the expanding IVF repertoire includes a host of other cutting edge technologies that were developed ...
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Another great technological advance in improving IVF success rates while reducing the multiple birth rate ...
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Over the past decade the use of third party reproduction
has more than quadrupled. Third party reproduction ...
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About ten years ago a new technology known as egg freezing produced its first baby. Despite the knowledge ...
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Over the past several years the staff of La Jolla IVF has noticed a growing tendency amongst patients who require unusual solutions for their fertility problems, to criss-cross the globe in search of the appropriate infertility treatments. The main reasons for people to seek fertility treatments in countries other than their own are that certain types of treatments are forbidden by law to be performed in their own country, certain categories of patients are not eligible for assisted reproductive treatments in their own country and in some countries the waiting lists to obtain treatments are just too long.
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