The average out-of-pocket expenditure for an in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycle in India is crushing for most families—about Rs 2.3 lakh in private hospitals and Rs 1.1 lakh in public hospitals.

Nearly 89 percent of participants undergoing IVF – a medical procedure to help people have a baby by combining eggs and sperm in a laboratory – were pushed into catastrophic medical spending, defined as treatment costs exceeding 10 percent of a household’s annual income.

These findings—India’s first empirical evidence on the financial burden of infertility treatment—come from a government-commissioned report led by the Indian Council of Medical Research–National Institute for Research in Reproductive and Child Health (ICMR–NIRRCH).

The report, commissioned by the Department of Health Research un

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