San Francisco has one of the highest shares of babies born through in vitro fertilization in the country, a Chronicle analysis found.
At least 9.4% of babies born in San Francisco in 2024, the latest available data, were born from pregnancies that used assistive reproductive technologies, which by definition includes in vitro fertilization as well as the rarely used gamete intrafallopian transfer, according to CDC data collected from birth certificates. That puts San Francisco just behind three counties in New Jersey.
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The data isn’t perfect. While the information is collected on the current standard birth certificate form, several states did not report that information across all years, including Georgia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. And even in places that do collect information about infertility treatments on birth certificates, the actual numbers of births from these technologies may be underreported, the CDC has found.
Still, the numbers are the best available at the county level to measure babies born through IVF, even if they do not capture the entire picture. The numbers also only account for births resulting from IVF, not all IVF usage…