More than 20,600 babies in the United States were born with the help of fertility techniques in 1996, a newly released report shows.
Women using various medical techniques made 64,036 attempts to conceive children, resulting in 20,659 live births, according to a joint report by the Centers for Disease Control, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and Resolve, an advocacy group on infertility issues.
The second annual report shows a 23 percent success rate in women using their own eggs, or nearly one of every four attempts at conception.
Though the success rate is 3 percent higher than the previous year, it’s too early to say whether the numbers reflect an increase in the total, said Dr. Lynne Wilcox, director of the CDC’s reproductive health division and co-author of the report.
The 1996 figures, the most current available, are based on reports from more clinics than before and a different way of collecting data, Wilcox said.
When broken down by age group, the success rate of artificial conception rose to 29 percent for women under 35. The number fell to 21 percent for those 35 to 39 and sank to 8.7 percent for 40 and over.
The success rate for births among women using their own eggs begins to decline in the early 30s, according to the CDC.
In the same study, women using donor eggs had a 39 percent success rate.
The reproductive techniques cited in the study include in vitro fertilization, or IVF; gamete intrafallopian transfer, known as GIFT; and zygote intrafallopian transfer, or ZIFT.
In IVF, embryos are grown in lab dishes and transferred to the uterus.
GIFT refers to a procedure in which eggs and sperm are placed in the fallopian tube to fertilize naturally. In ZIFT, embryos are placed into the fallopian tubes.
An estimated 38 percent of births using reproductive technology were multiple births compared with 3 percent in the general population.