Three million babies born after fertility treatment

PRAGUE, June 22 (Reuters) More than 3 million babies have been born following fertility treatment since the birth of the first IVF child nearly three decades ago, according to a report released.

Louise Brown made medical history when she was born in Britain after her mother had in-vitro fertilisation.

Since then the number of children conceived each year through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) has risen from 30,000 in 1989 when data was first collected to 200,000 in 2002.

''Three million is a lot of births. It means that a lot of people have access (to fertility treatment),'' Dr Jacques de Mouzon, of the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART), told a news conference yesterday.

He expects the numbers will continue to rise because women are delaying childbirth in the developed world and the treatment rate is still very low in developing countries.

The ICMART report, which includes data from 52 countries, covers two-thirds of the world's ART treatments. It shows the average pregnancy rate using fresh embryos was 25.1 per cent and the delivery rate was 18.5 per cent.

''However, these rates varied from 13.6 per cent to 40.5 per cent for pregnancy, and 9.1 per cent to 37.1 per cent for delivery,'' Dr de Mouzon said.

Fertility treatments are most available in Israel, where it is completely free, and Denmark, which has the highest percentage of ART births. It was lowest in Latin America where fewer than 0.1 per cent of births were due to ART.

''There is a real inequality between the different countries, and this is due to money,'' said Dr de Mouzon.

Nearly 56 per cent of all ART cycles are in Europe. Almost half of the techniques are performed in four countries -- the United States, Germany, France and Britain.

The report released at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) meeting also showed that fertility clinics are moving towards transferring only one embryo into the womb during treatment to reduce the number of multiple births.

''If we compare 2002 with 1998, there is a decline in several countries in the number of transferred embryos,'' De Mouzon added.

REUTERS MBA VA RAI0849