Assisted reproduction technologies driving adoption shortfall

Procedures such as surrogacy, IVF, and egg freezing are having a detrimental effect on adopter recruitment, a recent study has found.

A joint study by children’s charity Coram and Adoption England revealed that the gap between the number of children in need of adoption and approved adopters increased by 52 per cent over the past five years. New projections show that by 2030, the gulf between waiting children and prospective parents could further widen to 87 per cent.

Currently, 1,600 children in England are estimated to be waiting for an approved adopter.

‘A viable option’

Coram Chief Executive Carol Homden attributed the growing gap, in part, to more people “going through more rounds of IVF treatment before they consider adoption”.

If just a small proportion of those struggling to conceive were to consider adoption, Britain’s adoption crisis would quickly be solved.

She explained: “We need to make sure adoption is considered a viable option for forming your family, as surrogacy is very legally complex and uncertain, while IVF, even now, does not always work, and places many emotional and physical demands”.

Alastair Sutcliffe, a professor of general paediatrics at University College London, observed: “I don’t think adoption is being promoted adequately by fertility clinics because a substantial amount of it is private-sector based and there isn’t the incentive”.

He contended: “If just a small proportion of those struggling to conceive were to consider adoption, Britain’s adoption crisis would quickly be solved.”

IVF on the rise

The latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority show that around 53,000 women in the UK had IVF in 2024.

The authority also reported that “the number of babies born from IVF has more than doubled in the last 20 years, from 10,200 in 2004 to around 21,400 babies born in 2024”.

IVF, or ‘in vitro fertilisation’, usually involves removing multiple eggs from a woman’s ovaries, which are then fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. But unknown numbers of fertilised eggs are frozen, stored and subsequently destroyed.