Rise of the IVF single mother

Fertility treatments for women without a partner treble in a decade – and average age is now 39

FERTILITY treatment for single women has almost trebled in a decade.

The average age of a woman seeking to start a family without a partner is 39, as clinics report rising numbers of women who have struggled to meet someone with whom they want to have children.

The number of IVF attempts by women trying to have a baby on their own has gone from 531 in 2008 to 1,352 in 2018.

Meanwhile, clinics are carrying out almost seven times the IVF cycles for women in samesex relationships they performed a decade ago – from 320 in 2008 to 2,151 in 2018. Sally

Cheshire, chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates the fertility sector and released the figures in a new report, said: ‘In recent years we’ve seen changes in the reasons why people are using fertility treatment, with the biggest percentage increases among those in female same-sex relationships and single women.

‘The increase... reflects an increasing shift in society’s changing attitudes towards family creation and relationships.’

Almost 2,000 egg-freezing cycles were carried out in 2018, and 55 per cent of women freezing their eggs were single, the report shows. If women freeze their eggs at a younger age, such as when they have no partner, or one they do not feel is yet parent material, the eggs are better quality. That means women give themselves better odds of conceiving if they go back and use the eggs when they are older. The HFEA report records the average age of heterosexual or same-sex couples having IVF as 35, while single women appear to wait until they are 39 on average.

About one in 14 single women in 2018 chose to ‘share’ their eggs, which often means they get free or discounted treatment. That is often because they are paying for IVF – which costs an average of £5,000 – on their own, rather than with a partner, or because they face additional costs of about £1,000 to use a sperm donor. But egg

‘Changing attitudes’ ‘Chose to share their eggs’

sharing means giving those eggs to another woman – a stranger who may be unable to conceive naturally because her age means her eggs are poor quality.

The fertility regulator says that single women who do this face the possibility of a child born from their eggs requesting their details at the age of 18 and tracking them down. Among heterosexual couples, less than 1 per cent opted for egg-sharing.

Despite the rise in single women opting for IVF, they still account for only about 3 per cent of cycles.

IVF involves artificially fertilising eggs with sperm in a laboratory, to create an embryo placed inside a woman to make her pregnant.

While heterosexual couples have a 23 per cent chance of having a baby for every embryo, that rate falls to 17 per cent for single women, which may be because they tend to be older.