In the United Kingdom and United States, public registries offer success rates for individual fertility clinics. Canada has no such requirement, leaving patients frustrated by the lack of transparent data.
Melika Dolaty's Quest for Information
Melika Dolaty, a 33-year-old financial consultant in Toronto, is researching egg freezing because she wants to become a mother one day, just not yet. But she is frustrated by the lack of data fertility clinics share. “One hundred per cent that would help me so much to know the success rates,” she said. “That’s a big deal for me.”
Dolaty tried to find that information, including data for women of colour—who studies show can face unequal health outcomes in fertility care—on the websites of several Toronto-area fertility clinics. She failed.
Canada's Lack of Mandatory Reporting
In Canada, unlike the United States and United Kingdom, fertility clinics are not required to publicly share their individual success rates. “It doesn’t give anyone a real understanding of what their likelihood of success is at a particular clinic,” said Kathleen Hammond, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s law school specializing in health law.
Egg freezing involves collecting and storing eggs—sometimes for months or years—until a woman wants to have a baby, at which point the eggs are thawed, fertilized and transferred to the uterus to try to achieve pregnancy.
There is no public list of how many Canadian fertility clinics provide elective egg-freezing. The Investigative Journalism Bureau found 42 clinics with 110 storefront locations across seven provinces, most privately owned.
Selective Data Presentation
For many clinics, reporters found data was selectively presented, offering little meaningful information about the likelihood the procedure would lead to a successful birth. For example, the website of Toronto’s Tripod Fertility says that, with “over 600 babies born, a 4.4-star Google rating, and nearly a decade of experience,” it is “known for personalized care and excellent outcomes. This makes it a top choice for egg freezing and IVF in Toronto.” The Tripod website offers no specific statistics from its own clinic about fertility outcomes. Tripod Fertility did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Limited Data on Live Births
It is not known exactly how many of the 4.1 million babies born in Canada between 2013 and 2023 came from frozen eggs. Data from the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS), an industry association of reproductive specialists and health professionals, has tallied 70 born in that period through the 37 clinics that voluntarily provide data to it.
Only one per cent of egg-freezing cycles in Canada to-date are estimated to have resulted in a live birth, according to CFAS’s data, mostly because many people have not yet, or will never, use their frozen eggs. Only 25 per cent of the embryos created from frozen eggs and transferred into women’s wombs in Canada have resulted in a live birth, according to the CFAS.
Fertility Inc. is a five-part series by the Investigative Journalism Bureau that delves into the Wild West of the egg-freezing industry: its aggressive marketing, its high costs, and the chances of an eventual successful pregnancy.
