However, the chances of taking home a baby are still largely dependent on a woman's age and the IVF clinics treating them. Individual clinic success rates range between 7 per cent and 31 per cent of cycles.

There were 14,355 babies born via IVF from 76,341 IVF cycles in 2018 according to the report collated by the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit at UNSW and funded by the FSA. This is up from 13,752 IVF babies in 2017.

The report covers all IVF cycles undertaken in Australian and New Zealand clinics in 2018 and the resulting babies born in 2018 and 2019.

IVF clinics are increasingly doing "freeze-all" cycles, in which all the eggs or embryos collected in a cycle are cryopreserved rather than transferring a fresh embryo.

The proportion of freeze-all cycles doubled in five years from 13 per cent to 26.7 per cent in 2018.

Professor Rombauts said the main driver of the freeze-all trend was the rise in pre-implantation genetic testing, in which embryos are screened for chromosomal abnormalities in the hope of selecting only the healthy embryos to transfer.

"For women over 35 in particular genetic screening can be beneficial, when there is a higher risk of abnormalities," he said.

"Genetic testing can reduce the time, money, energy and trauma it takes to have a healthy live birth because you're potentially not transferring embryos that are doomed to fail."

However, growing evidence suggests there could be a small risk that pre-implantation genetic testing could lead to viable embryos being discarded by incorrectly flagging them as abnormal.

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"For women under 35 I would certainly not recommend it it's an extra manipulation on the embryos and an extra cost," Professor Rombauts said. "But for older women, it can be an important test and I would raise it as an option because there is potential benefit."

Laura Smith, 34, from Forest Lodge is the proud mother of 4-month-old Hunter after undergoing IVF at Genea. "For me, he's perfection and everything I ever wanted," she said.

Ms Smith, who has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and her husband Ben spent a couple of years trying to conceive naturally then about a year trying other fertility treatment before turning to IVF.

Her eggs were harvested in one cycle and the embryo that became Hunter implanted a month later, while the others are frozen for future use. The couple intend to try for a second child fairly quickly.

It's an absolutely fantastic thing that we've been given this technology ... who knows if I would have had a baby by now if I didn't have IVF?

"I was very lucky I fell pregnant the very first round of IVF and I had no complications or issues," Ms Smith said. "It's an absolutely fantastic thing that we've been given this technology and the ability to be able to have babies in this way who knows if I would have had a baby by now if I didn't have IVF?"

She opted to use a frozen embryo because of medical advice it would improve her odds to harvest and implant on different cycles and to enable genetic testing.

IVF clinics are reporting dramatic differences in their success rates. One clinic had a live birth rate of roughly 7 per cent of initiated cycles, compared to 31.5 per cent at the clinic with the highest success rate.

The clinics were not identified in the report and should be interpreted with caution. For instance, some clinics may specialise in second referrals for complex patients, older women, or younger, uncomplicated cases.

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A new federal-government-funded website will soon give would-be parents access to individual clinic success rates and their own chances of taking home a baby after undergoing IVF based on their individual characteristics.

The 'My IVF Success' website is expected to be ready to launch before the end of the year in response to growing calls for greater transparency in the sector.

Age is still a powerful determiner of IVF success, with younger women having better chances. For women under 30 years, live birth rate per fresh embryo transfer was 40.4 per cent compared to 9.5 per cent for women aged 40 to 44.

For frozen embryo transfers, the live birth rate was 34.9 per cent in women under 30, and 20.1 per cent for women aged 40 to 44.

Professor Georgina Chambers, the report's lead author and Director of UNSW's National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit said the higher live birth rate for older women via frozen cycles was mostly because the embryo was created in an earlier fresh cycle when she was younger.

"It's also because we're increasingly using pre-implantation genetic testing to select the healthy embryos for transfer rather than putting back embryos that aren't viable," Professor Chambers said.

In 2018, the average age of women using their own eggs was 35.8 years about five years older than the median age at which women, in general, gave birth in Australia (30.7 years).

The average age of women using donor eggs or embryos was 40 and the average age of male partners of women undergoing IVF was 38.1 years old.

The proportion of twins and triplets born via IVF treatment is now a record low 3.2 per cent in Australia and New Zealand thanks to the decrease in multiple embryo transfers in the one cycle.

with Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Kate Aubusson is Health Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

More here:
'Quite amazing': One in 10 babies born to women over 35 now conceived via IVF - Sydney Morning Herald

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