Record Number of Test-Tube Babies Born in U.S.

According to an annual report published by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), the percentage of test-tube babies born in the United States was at 1.5 percent of all births or 61,740 in 2012-otherwise known as the highest total number of births recorded since the technology was introduced nearly three decades ago.

Only four percent of women under 35 allegedly used single embryos in 2007, according to the Reuters. However, that number rose to 15 percent in 2012.

SART is composed of 379 clinics with members that make up 90 percent of the infertility clinics in the United States. These clinics reported a total of 165,172 procedures of in vitro fertilization (IVF), via a procedure that requires eggs from the mother-to-be or a donor that's fertilized in a laboratory. These procedures resulted in the birth of 61,740 babies, according to various reports.

"It's important for people to understand that women over 35 have the highest percentage of failures," said Miriam Zoll, author of the 2013 book "Cracked Open: Liberty, Fertility and the Pursuit of High Tech Babies," via Reuters. "These treatments have consistently failed two-thirds of the time since 1978, when the first test tube baby was born in England."

Previous data from the organization has shown than the percentage of attempts resulting in births were 10 times higher in women under the age of 35 than those over 42.

As fertility issues began to increase as individual's age, many embrace new technologies as a hope to conceive.

Today, statistics show that men and women tend to start having families later in life, with the average age of a first time mother being 26. That's approximately five years later than the average in 1970, at 21.4.