The Society for Artificial Reproductive Technology (SART) is an organization of professionals who are responsible for setting and maintaining high standards of care in fertility medicine. Each year, SART releases a report that details how many of each type of ART (artificial reproductive technology) cycle was completed and the associated outcomes. SART recently released their annual report that provides statistics about the fertility industry from 2023. There is a two year delay in releasing these results and statistics to ensure that all cycles are counted and to await the live birth statistics that occur in 2024 as a result of a 2023 treatment cycle.
This year, the report shows increased numbers of couples turning to IVF to build their families and egg freezing becoming exponentially more popular, and because of this, it comes as no surprise that the number of ART cycles per year has increased yet again.
A staggering 415,953 ART cycles were completed in 2023—the highest number ever. Of those, just under 40,000 were egg freezing cycles. Whether people are looking to start their family now, or preserve their fertility through egg or embryo freezing, SART’s 2023 report shows that the demand for fertility care is higher than it's ever been.
IVF Trends in 2023
Fresh vs. Frozen
As seen in recent years, it is becoming less common to do an IVF cycle with a fresh transfer, as more and more patients are opting for “freeze-all” cycles. In 2023, only 15,928 fresh embryo transfers took place, compared to 62,955 5 years earlier in 2018. In freeze-all IVF cycles, all embryos are frozen after developing in the embryology lab. This allows for Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT-A) and greater flexibility in planning future embryo transfers.
Why do you need to do a “freeze-all” cycle to do PGT-A?
Because it takes a few weeks to receive PGT results, most patients opt to freeze all of their embryos while they wait for the results. This way, they can make a plan to transfer an embryo that was determined to be chromosomally normal (euploid), giving them the best chances of success.
Freeze-all cycles with PGT-A are becoming more popular as the age of IVF patients skews higher. About ⅔ of the IVF cycles that took place in 2023 were for patients 35 and older. This age group sees the largest advantage in transferring PGT-tested euploid embryos. For example, in 2023 for patients ages 38-40, the live birth rate after transferring an untested embryo was 11.6%, but the live birth rate after transferring a PGT-A normal embryo was 25.7%. We likely can expect this IVF freeze-all with PGT trend to continue as people continue to delay motherhood into their mid-thirties and beyond.
Elective Single Embryo Transfer (eSET) Is Gold Standard
In 2015, 35.3% of IVF cycles resulted in multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.). Today, 96.74% of IVF cycles result in singleton births —very close to the naturally occurring rate of singleton births in pregnancies without ART (97.22%).
This dramatic change is largely due to the rise of eSET (elective single embryo transfer), which has become the standard in modern fertility care. The singleton pregnancies resulting from the transfer of one embryo at a time, significantly reduces the risk of complications like preterm birth and low birth weight, making pregnancy safer for both the mother and the baby.
eSET has also become increasingly popular as PGT testing of embryos has become more common. As a result, in most clinical scenarios, doctors will recommend transferring one chromosomally normal embryo rather than multiple untested embryos. This lowers the likelihood of multiples and has led to healthier birth outcomes.
Egg Freezing on the Rise
In recent years, egg freezing has seen explosive growth. Since SART first started reporting egg freezing statistics in 2014, its popularity has grown by 544%! Even more impressively, the number of egg freezing cycles grew by over 39% from 2022 to 2023 alone.
This rise reflects a growing number of women in their 20s and 30s who are choosing to preserve their fertility while they focus on their career, find the right partner, or simply want to give their future selves more family-building options.
It’s noteworthy to add that many of the eggs that have been frozen in recent years have not yet been thawed, fertilized, or transferred, which makes it difficult to provide strong success statistics. Over the coming years as more and more of the frozen eggs are used to create pregnancies, valuable information around live birth rates and the odds of success using frozen eggs will emerge.
What Does All of This Mean?
Analysis of the 2023 SART report shows that demand for fertility treatments is at an all time high. This realization highlights the need to increase access to fertility care by improving affordability, expanding fertility benefits, and finding ways to deliver care more widely across all races, genders, orientations, financial statuses, and geographical locations.
The future of family-building is evolving—and SART’s latest data confirms that more people than ever are turning to assisted reproductive technology to preserve their fertility and grow their families. At Berry, we strive to make fertility treatments less intimidating and more accessible to all. The Berry app is designed to make you feel supported and confident, no matter what your path to parenthood looks like.
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