Benefits of fertility treatment outweigh costs

The benefits of providing free fertility treatments to couples could far outweigh the costs to the government, according to research findings reported on Tuesday.

Professor William Ledger, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, looked at the average cost of producing a baby through in-vitro fertilisation and the benefit to the government over the personีs lifetime.

He and a group of mathematicians and economists used a modelling exercise and calculated that for the average 13,000 pounds it cost to produce a child through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) the government would recoup 143,000 pounds in taxes alone.

าHelping people with infertility have children is not just a benefit to themselves and their families but also to society,ำ he told a news conference.
าOverall, there is a huge net positive benefit to society over that childีs lifetime,ำ he added.

The availability of government-funded fertility treatment varies across the country. Ledger said it was currently less than one treatment for each eligible infertile couple.

But if it is increased to three treatments for each couple, over the next two to three years the number of babies born through IVF could increase by 10,000.
าThe average person over a lifetime will contribute 143,000 pounds to the state in benefits if he, or she, is an IVF child born to a mother 35 years of age,ำ he explained.

In 2006 in Britain, a live birth happens in about one treatment cycle in four.
In separate research presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), the independent research organisation, RAND Europe, suggested that if European governments provided more fertility treatments for infertile couples it could offset the population ageing crisis in Europe, where the number of people over 65 years old was expected to double by 2050.