In Denmark alone, “around 11% of children are born thanks to fertility treatment,” Anita Fincham, Advocacy Manager at Fertility Europe, told The European Correspondent.

Still, access to treatment remains unequal based on location, income, and sexual orientation.

Fertility treatments are medical procedures that help people conceive. They can include medication, intrauterine insemination, and in vitro fertilisation. One reason for the growing demand has to do with an increase in infertility. “The quality of sperm is getting worse and worse over the last 50 years,” Fincham said.

Lifestyle changes also play a role: “People want to have children later in life,” Fincham said. Many who would not need treatment to conceive in their 20s may require it in their late 30s or 40s.

According to the Eurostat 2026 Demography of Europe report, the average age of first-time mothers in the EU increased from 28.9 in 2014 to 29.9 in 2024.

In the same period, the share of babies born to mothers aged 40 or above doubled, from 3% to 6%. Possible explanations are that mothers want to pursue higher education, become financially stable, and find a stable partner first, which delays motherhood.

Unequal access

“Across the EU, fertility treatment policy differs in who is allowed to access treatment and how well it is funded by the state,” the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights Secretariat (EPF) told us.

Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Portugal, and Sweden are considered the best-performing EU countries in the European Atlas of Fertility Treatments, given that procedures are broadly accessible, partially or totally publicly reimbursed, and there are comprehensive legal frameworks for assisted reproduction.

In other countries, traditional, heteronormative ideas of what a family should look like can influence access to fertility clinics. According to the EPF, countries like Slovakia, Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, and Czechia often “limit access to heterosexual couples.”

Another criticism of the fertility market is that many private clinics are mainly in it for the money, profiting from people's desire to start a family, while only those who can afford it will become parents. Some of them overpromise results: EU research found clinic websites to be overly optimistic and potentially misleading about success statistics, often relying on inconsistent definitions of treatment success.

“Until we actually offer funded fertility treatment by the health systems,” Fincham said, people seeking treatment “will always be clients instead of patients.” Her own experience adds to her criticism of companies that exploit hopeful families to sell exaggerated promises.