Donor conception - births and children

Each donor may specify the number of families he or she is willing to help create, up to a maximum of ten families
Donors can apply to the HFEA to find out how many children have been born as a result of their donation, the child(ren)’s sex and year of birth
Parents can also apply for non-identifying donor information from the HFEA and the number, sex and year of birth of their donor conceived genetic siblings
Donor-conceived people can apply for information but the amount of information they receive will depend on when they were conceived, their age and whether their donor has re-registered
The number of births differs from the number of children born because some births are of twins or triplets
The number of births following treatment not using any donated eggs, sperm or embryos is included for comparison
Treatment started in the years shown below. Any birth will have actually occurred around nine months after treatment took place
Figures have slightly changed since our last publication due to improvements in the quality of our data
This data was extracted from the HFEA’s data warehouse containing Register data as at 22/12/2011.

Births following donor conception treatment
Year	Donor sperm conception	Donor egg conception	Donor embryo conception	All donor conceived births	Births not involving donor conception
1992	1,599	87	15	1,701	2,028
1993	1,973	135	26	2,134	2,571
1994	2,084	176	49	2,309	2,952
1995	1,948	204	38	2,190	3,793
1996	1,797	266	59	2,122	4,789
1997	1,614	289	63	1,966	4,946
1998	1,473	313	66	1,852	5,666
1999	1,378	377	60	1,815	5,969
2000	1,147	460	51	1,658	6,110
2001	1,082	432	66	1,580	6,435
2002	1,094	457	59	1,610	7,005
2003	1,038	448	54	1,540	7,337
2004	994	447	49	1,490	7,523
2005	920	472	61	1,453	8,243
2006	756	451	62	1,269	9,500
2007	828	395	52	1,275	10,284
2008	879	421	63	1,363	11,295
2009	937	455	64	1,456	12,027

Children born following donor conception treatment
Year	Donor sperm conception	Donor egg conception	Donor embryo conception	All donor conception	DC children as a % of all IVF and DI babies	All IVF and DI babies (own and donated gametes)
1992	1,781	122	19	1,922	42%	4,560
1993	2,283	177	35	2,495	43%	5,823
1994	2,355	235	66	2,656	41%	6,535
1995	2,228	262	50	2,540	34%	7,529
1996	2,031	356	78	2,465	28%	8,709
1997	1,831	388	84	2,303	26%	8,701
1998	1,670	415	83	2,168	23%	9,507
1999	1,545	483	76	2,104	22%	9,762
2000	1,284	597	61	1,942	20%	9,751
2001	1,205	547	89	1,841	18%	9,978
2002	1,236	595	76	1,907	18%	10,648
2003	1,155	563	68	1,786	16%	10,879
2004	1,098	566	56	1,720	16%	10,970
2005	1,030	584	76	1,690	14%	11,949
2006	858	565	76	1,499	11%	13,159
2007	957	506	64	1,527	11%	14,167
2008	1,007	547	82	1,636	11%	15,561
2009	1,084	593	79	1,756	11%	16,394

Background briefing - sperm, eggs and embryo donation

Page last updated: 07 August 2013