For policymakers, this presents an opportunity. By capitalizing on reinvigorated consumer health excitement, we can give women more confidence to navigate their own fertility. This is the most direct pathway to improving the birth rate—a boon for America and a blueprint for many other countries moving forward.
These are rare, bi-partisan priorities, and they represent an opportunity for material economic and healthcare wins.
We’ve seen positive policy steps in the past 10 months: advancements in fertility drug accessibility so that more people can access IVF, as well as improved menopause support by removing the black box labels on menopausal hormone replacement therapy.
We need to go further. Here are additional advancements that would move the needle.
First, fertility care must become affordable, predictable, and less invasive.
Today, most medical guidance is structured around waiting—up to a year for younger women, six months for those over 35—before a doctor will evaluate why conception hasn’t happened. Once they do meet the threshold for care, the average family can be expected to undergo more than two rounds of IVF before conceiving, spending close to $50,000 on treatment. This rivals the down payments for many houses, and by itself blocks millions of families from pursuing a dream of conceiving children.
