IVF procedures take plunge owing to financial crisis

The number of births in Greece through in vitro fertilization (IVF) has dropped between 40 and 50 percent over the last eight years due to the financial crisis, according to experts in the field.

“Couples whose fertilized eggs were frozen have contacted us and asked that they be destroyed because they decided they couldn’t have another child,” said Minas Mastrominas, director and founder of the Embryogenesis IVF center, adding that in the last three years especially, there has been something of a mass destruction of frozen fertilized eggs.

He also referred to a couple that decided to change from a twin pregnancy to a single baby because they couldn’t afford to raise two children. “It struck me because the woman was over 40,” he said.

Before the financial crisis hit Greece in 2009, it is estimated that there were 15,000 courses of IVF annually whereas in the last year this number has dropped to between 8,000-9,000.