More Than 73 Thousand Babies Born from Assisted Reproductive Technology Cycles Done in 2020
Mar 29, 2022
By: ASRM/SART
Origin: ASRM/SART Press Release
Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Demand for Fertility Services Remained Strong
Multiple Birth Rates Continue to Decrease
Washington, DC – The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, the United States’ primary organization of professionals dedicated to the practice of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) is releasing its latest national and clinic-specific ART data today.The preliminary national data set for 2020 shows 73,602 babies born resulting from 301,523 cycles performed during that year. This represents a decrease from the previous year’s number of 77,256 babies born from 302,998 cycles. 358 SART member clinics in the US contributed to the report.
Additionally, there was a very slight decrease in fertility preservation cycles for patients freezing and banking their own eggs from 16,163 in 2020 from 16,194 in 2019.
Increasing numbers of patients across all age groups continue to choose elective single embryo transfer (eSET), which critically decrease the risk of multiple births, with its use increasing to 78.4% of transfer cycles in 2020, up from 75% in 2019. Accordingly, among ART-conceived pregnancies, singleton births increased to 93.8% (2020) from 93% (2019), twin births decreased to 6.1% in 2020 from 7.0% in 2019, and triplet births remained the same at only 0.1% of all ART births in 2020.
SART President Timothy N. Hickman, M.D., said, “2020 was a difficult year for everyone, including our clinics and their patients, but we are pleased that despite the challenges of COVID-19, there were only slight reductions in the utilization of infertility services.”
SART, The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, is an affiliate of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). SART's member practices perform more than overwhelming majority of the ART cycles in the United States.