Nowadays many couples take out loans to conceive

15.05.2015

The Maryland couple, Miryam Gerdine and her husband, both 44 years old, are expecting their first child in June, but the happy occasion comes with a price tag: they have spent $30,000 on in vitro fertilization and other procedures.

Delayed childbearing has allowed more women to join the workforce, but many who wait until their late 30s and 40s struggle to get pregnant.

A sevenfold increase in IVF and other fertility treatments between 1988 and 2013—and more offerings in the industry aimed at helping couples conceive, such as loans from fertility-finance firms and package deals on IVF treatments.

The U.S. market for infertility services now totals about $3.5 billion a year, up from $2.25 billion in 2000, according to the latest estimates by Marketdata Enterprises Inc., a market-research firm.

IVF is expensive; it can run from $15,000 to $20,000 per attempt—and often, several are needed. The Gerdines, who both earn competitive salaries as government workers, tapped their savings to buy a “shared-risk” plan: For $30,000, they got multiple IVF attempts and a guarantee of money back if it failed.

It worked immediately. Ms. Gerdine said they are planning to do it again, hoping for a second child. “Money was not a factor that held us back,” she said. To offset the cost, the couple pared back their spending and stopped going abroad for vacations.

The chance of having one or more children through an IVF attempt, on average, is around 30%. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, success rates depend greatly on factors such as the age of the mother and type of procedure.

For most couples, insurance doesn’t cover the cost. Just 15 states mandate any kind of fertility coverage, and it isn’t common for employers to cover procedures such as egg freezing.

Doctors say that instead, couples tap savings, charge credit cards and get cash from their parents and other family. Some couples take out loans from fertility-finance companies, sometimes at high interest rates.

Generally clinics don’t receive payments from the loan providers they work with, but they can attract more clients by negotiating lower loan fees. Sometimes couples start the process but stop when the financial stress rises, said Jan Rydfors, a Silicon Valley doctor and fertility specialist.

Just as couples save up for homes and college educations, they might prepare to buy services to ensure they have children.

The rate of women having their first child at ages 35 to 39 nearly doubled between 1988 and 2013, CDC data show. There were 11.2 “first births” per 1,000 women of that age in 2013, up from 5.7 in 1988 and just 1.7 in 1973. For women ages 40 to 44, the rate rose to 2.3 births from 0.3 in 1973.

The number of treatments for reproductive assistance has soared. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, an organization that represents fertility clinics, nearly 175,000 treatments were done in 2013, up from less than 23,000 in 1988. The treatments consist almost entirely of IVF and exclude routine fertility drugs.

About 1.5% of U.S. babies are born using “assisted reproductive technologies”—meaning treatments like IVF in which the egg and sperm are combined outside the body.

Nearly seven million American men and women will experience infertility this year, according to Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, a fertility clinic and the reproductive endocrinology division of Rutgers University’s medical school. In a February poll, it found more than a quarter of those between 25 and 40 who were trying to get pregnant were experiencing problems.

The Boston couple—she’s a teacher, he’s a software engineer—decided in 2008 to plunk about $25,000 into an IVF attempt. It failed. When they tried again, using embryos from the first attempt, it worked.

“It was all of our savings,” Ms. Coutinho said. “But it was for a good cause.” Later the couple had a second child, naturally.

Based on: wsj.com