What are the 2024 Fertility Statistics I Need to Know About?

Fertility is a growing concern for people around the world. As many as one in eight couples reportedly struggle to conceive, and a full third of Americans have either sought fertility treatment themselves or know someone who has.  

But there is some good news to be found, with more folks turning to the medical community for help and the number of babies conceived with fertility treatment on the rise.  

The truth about fertility statistics comes down to the numbers. So what are those numbers? Let’s dig in.  

Is it a baby bust or a baby boom?

The number of births in the United States rose 1% in 2021, after a decline of 4% from 2019 to 2020 (thanks, pandemic). And while the birth rate is lower now than it was, say for our parents, researchers say this is actually because more folks are waiting longer to have babies, not necessarily only due to fertility issues.

The birth rate (which is calculated by number of births per 1,000 women), has decreased for younger women under 25, but actually has increased for women in their 30s.

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Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here.

Everyone knows someone facing infertility

The fertility journey is one that can be bumpy, and if you’re nodding your head at that notion, you’re not alone: 

• 1 in 6 individuals worldwide experience infertility. 
• 12% of women experience difficulties becoming pregnant or carrying a child to term.
• 19% of all couples are unable to conceive after a year of unprotected sex.
• 10% of all couples are unable to conceive after two years of unprotected sex. 
• 33% of Americans have turned to fertility treatments or know someone who has.

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here; the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, here; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, here; the National Institutes of Health, here; and the Pew Research Center, here.)

Same problem, different cause

All bodies are different. So it’s probably no big surprise that fertility causes are different from case to case. For hetero couples facing infertility:

• One-third of cases are due to male infertility.
• One-third of cases are due to female fertility.
• One-third of cases are due to both partners, or entirely unknown.

Age

If you feel like that biological clock is tick, tick, ticking, you’re probably asking what your birthday really means when it comes to fertility. 

• 1 in 4 women get pregnant during any single menstrual cycle during their 20s and early 30s. 
• 1 in 10 women get pregnant per menstrual cycle in their 40s. 
• A 25-year-old woman who has been trying to conceive for three months has an 18% chance of getting pregnant in their next menstrual cycle 
• A 40-year-old woman who has been trying to conceive for three months has a 7% chance. 
• After one year of trying, 25-year-old women have a 10% chance of getting pregnant in their next cycle.
• After one year of trying, 40-year-old women have a 3% chance of getting pregnant in their next cycle.
• Women younger than 35 are advised to seek help after a year of trying to conceive. 
• Women 35 and older are advised to seek help after 6 months of trying to conceive. 

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(Data via the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, here; the National Institutes of Health, here; PLOS One, here; and the Centers for Disease Control, here.) 

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Age matters when it comes to starting treatment too. Take IVF rates, for example—researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia estimate: 

• 2 out of 3 women who start IVF before age 35 will take home a baby within three IVF cycles.
• Women under 30 have a 44% chance of a live birth in their first IVF cycle.
• Women under 30 have a live-birth rate of between 69% and 92% after seven cycles. 
• Women aged 40-44 have an 11% chance of a live birth in their first IVF cycle.
• Women aged 40-44 have a live-birth rate of between 21-37% after eight cycles.

‍(Data via The Medical Journal of Australia, here, and the University of New South Wales, here.)

Read What You Need to Know About Getting Pregnant In Your 40s

Egg quantity/quality

When you consider most women are born with nearly two million eggs, unfortunately, the chances that some of them won’t be winners are pretty decent.  

• 60% of fetuses in first trimester miscarriages are considered “chromosomally abnormal.”

Not to freak you out, but the number of eggs with potential chromosomal abnormalities could increase with age. A mom-to-be’s risk of having a child with a chromosomal abnormality is:  

Age and risk of having a child with a chromosomal abnormality    

• 20: 1 in 526   
• 30: 1 in 384   
• 35: 1 in 192   
• 40: 1 in 66  
• ‍45: 1 in 21

(Data via the University of New South Wales, here.)

Luckily, there have been tons of advancements in Pre-implantation Genetic Screening (PGS)—so if you’re undergoing IVF, you may be able to circumvent any potential chromosomal abnormalities within the embryo you choose to transfer. As we age, the number of overall eggs decreases too. On average, ACOG estimates women have:

Life stage/age and number of eggs    

• Birth: 1-2 million   
• Puberty: 300,000 - 500,000  
• 37 years old: 25,000   ‍
• 51 years old: 1,000

(Data via the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, here.)

PCOS

PCOS is short for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and it can send a woman’s hormones into a tailspin, affecting the monthly release of eggs needed to get pregnant. That lack of an egg release is called anovulation, and it’s one of the most common—but also most treatable—reasons for fertility struggles in women. Here’s what the US Department of Health and Human Services has to say:  

• 1 in 10 women of childbearing age have PCOS.
• 30% of couples seeking fertility treatment are diagnosed with anovulation.
• 90% of anovulation cases are caused by PCOS.

(Data via the US Dep't of Health & Human Services, here, and Frontiers in Bioscience 6, here.)

Endometriosis

Ever heard of the endometrium? It’s what doctors call the lining of your uterus. If you’re thinking endometrium and endometriosis sound pretty similar, you can probably guess where this is going. This issue with the lining of the uterus is often linked to fertility struggles, according to the folks at the National Institutes of Health:  

• 1 in 10 women are affected by endometriosis during their reproductive years.
• Around 40% of women with endometriosis may experience infertility.

(Data via the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, here.)

Variocele

If an enlarged vein in the testicle sounds painful, imagine what it can do to babymaking. The doctors call this varicocele, and it accounts for a significant number of fertility issues in men.  

• 25% to 35% of men with primary infertility problems have varicocele.
• 50% to 80% of men with secondary infertility issues have varicocele.

(Data via the Asian Journal of Andrology, here.)

Lack of sperm

It takes sperm to make a baby, so what happens when there is none? It’s called azoospermia, and it is a major factor when it comes to male infertility.  

• 10% to 15% of men who are infertile suffer from a lack of sperm.
• 1% of all men suffer from azoospermia.

(Data via the National Institutes of Health, here, and Clinics, here.)

Other causes

Not seeing anything familiar? There are some other factors out there that could be causing you to see just one pink line on that pregnancy test each month.  

• As much as 13% of female infertility is caused by cigarette smoking.
• 12% of fertility concerns are related to a woman weighing either too much or too little.
• 8.9% to 68.7% of men with infertility report a lack of sexual desire and lack of sexual satisfaction as types of sexual dysfunction.

(Data via the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, here, and Nature Reviews Urology, here.)

Fertility treatment statistics

More women than ever are turning to the medical community for help having a baby. As much as 85% to 90% of infertility cases are treated with conventional medical therapies such as medication or surgery. Take a look at the percentage of women of reproductive age who’ve sought medical help with fertility, broken down by type:  

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(Data via the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, here, and the Centers for Disease Control, here.)

IUI

Need a lingo guide? IUI is short for intrauterine insemination. This is the process where a doctor takes a male partner’s sperm and inserts it into the uterus. It’s one of the least invasive treatments out there, and it can be pretty successful in certain situations.  

• There were 330,773* ART cycles performed at 448 reporting clinics in 2019.
• There were 3,747,540 live births in the US in 2019, of which 77,998 were from ART cycles, meaning a little over 2% of babies born in 2019 were born through the help of ART.
• 33% of moms undergoing IVF get pregnant during their first IVF cycle.
• 54-77% of women undergoing IVF get pregnant by the eighth cycle.
• The average chance of taking home a baby with each IVF try is 30%.

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here; the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, here; The Medical Journal of Australia, here; the University of New South Wales, here; and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, here).

IVF

In vitro fertilization (or IVF) gets another cool acronym: ART, or assisted reproductive technology. By the CDC’s definition, ART is any fertility treatment in which either eggs or embryos are handled. So what happens if you are undergoing IVF, or another form of ART?  

• In 2021, 2.4% of all babies in the U.S. were born thanks to ART. That's up from 1.9% in 2020.
• There were 368,502 ART cycles that occurred in the U.S. in 2021, a 19% increase from 2020.
• Approximately 89,208 live births happened in 2021 thanks to ART.
• 33% of people undergoing IVF get pregnant during their first IVF cycle.
• 54-77% of women undergoing IVF get pregnant by the eighth cycle.

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here; the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, here; The Medical Journal of Australia, here; the University of New South Wales, here; and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, here.)

Surrogacy

“Gestational carrier” sounds a bit wordy, but what it boils down to is a surrogate who carries a baby for someone (or a couple). Sometimes money changes hands; sometimes it doesn’t. But this can be an alternative for many folks, especially gay men who want to become dads and women who are having difficulty conceiving. Here’s what the CDC has to say:  

• 2% of all ART cycles involve a gestational carrier.
• 16% of couples turning to a gestational carrier in the US are not American themselves.
• 53.4% of gestational carriers give birth to multiples.

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here.)

Egg donation

What’s a mom-to-be to do when her doctor says her eggs may not be able to work come conception time? Egg donation is a growing option, with thousands of families turning to it every year.  

• In 2021, there were over 20,000 donor egg cycles including fresh and frozen, up 19% from 2020.
• The success of egg donation depends on many factors but is not considered to be related to the age of the recipient.
• One study found 97.1% of egg survival rate was obtained and 59.1% of embryos developed to blastocyst stage. After biopsy and PGS, it was found that 84.2% of blastocysts were euploid and 15.8% were aneuploid. So 9 donor eggs would be expected to yield 4.5 euploid embryos on average. 

(Data via the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, here, and the Human Reproduction Journal, here.)

Sperm donation

Eggs aren’t the only half of the genetic equation that can come from a friend or a stranger. Donated sperm can be purchased from a sperm bank and used in IUI or IVF.  

• 21% of sperm donors donate to more than one bank.
• 48% of sperm donors say they want to help others.
• 85.7% of sperm donors would be willing to have contact with the child down the line.

(Data via the Human Reproduction Journal, here and here.)

Embryo donation

Sometimes it takes a little bit of magic from two parties to help make a baby. The words for this? Embryo donation. Typically donated by people who have frozen their embryos but have decided their own baby-making journey is over, this option results in hundreds of babies each year.  

• Over 2,000 donated embryos are thawed for IVF each year.
• If you use a donated embryo in the U.S., there’s a 40.6% chance per IVF cycle that the fertility treatment will result in a live birth.

(Data via the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, here.)

Costs and coverage

Making a baby gets a bit more costly when you have to turn to a doctor for help—and 0.07% of all of US health care costs are fertility-related.

Treatment costs

Fertility treatments are expensive and usually not covered by insurance. Most people who use fertility services pay out of pocket, which can amount to well over $10,000 depending on the services received.

So, what’s the future for fertility treatment?

Gestational carriers are on the rise

Between 1999 and 2013 (the most recent year for which data is available), the CDC saw the number of gestational carrier cycles more than double, and it continues to grow.  

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here.)

Kids created with donor material want more information

• Since its creation in 2000, the Donor Sibling Registry has connected thousands of kids to their biological siblings.
• 82% of donor-conceived offspring would like to make contact with their donor one day.

(Data via the Donor Sibling Registry, here, and the Human Reproduction Journal, here.)

Multiples are multiplying

• The number of multiples nearly doubled between 1915 (the first year records of this kind were kept) and 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.
• More than ⅓ of twins and more than ¾ of triplets or higher order multiples result from fertility treatments.

(Data via the Pew Research Center, here.)

Egg freezing is getting easier

In 2009, just 475 women froze their eggs. In 2020, more than nearly 17K women froze their eggs. This incredible growth has been driven by:

• Women are starting families later than ever. The latest U.S. Census Bureau figures show that, for the first time, the average age of women giving birth is now 30 in the U.S., the highest on record.
• ASRM removed the “experimental” label from egg freezing procedures in 2012, opening the door to a widening use of the procedure for a broader group of women.

Fertility coverage carries weight

• Turnover at companies with fertility coverage was 5% less in 2016, compared to those that don’t offer some sort of benefit.

(Data via Mercer, here.)

Moms are getting older

No matter where they are or what they look like, the average age of women first having babies is on the rise:

• In 2017, birth rates dropped 12% in rural areas, 16% in small or medium metro areas, and 18% in large metro counties areas.
• That same year, the mean mother age at the time of their first birth rose by 1.3 years (rural), 1.5 years (small or medium metro), and 1.8 years (large metro).

(Data via the Centers for Disease Control, here.)

Bottom line

Trying to conceive can be lonely, especially when things aren’t going quite the way a woman or couple planned. But the numbers don’t lie: Not only are men and women not alone on their fertility journeys, but help really is out there.