FOR a generation, having children was out of fashion in trendsetting Britain. But now it seems babies are back in vogue, and not just as an accessory.

Last year, the birth rate climbed to 1.91 - the highest point since the early 1970s - thanks in no small part to improved in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) methods.

Some governments in Asia are so convinced that IVF can help reverse their own plummeting birth rates that they too are pumping more money into subsidising treatments.

As the British say, the proof is in the pudding.

Last year, there were 90,000 more live births in England than in 2001, according to official data published this month.

The most striking rises were in women over 40: Their fertility rates more than doubled in the last 15 years, partly because of the improvement in IVF.

At age 38, Ms Lucy Hinds' life as an executive for a multinational telecoms firm left her no time for a partner, let alone children - until six months ago.

She paid &pound5,000 (S$13,000) for a course of IVF with donor sperm. She was not successful, but is resolute about it, even though she knows the trials of being a single mum.

'We humans are programmed to procreate,' she said. 'It's about feeling that you have created something enduring, a legacy if you like.'

Now, 30 years after the first 'test-tube baby' was born in Britain, IVF patients like Ms Hinds are surging in number.

In 1991, around 6,000 people sought clinical support to get pregnant and 1,200 IVF babies were born. That rose to 32,000 patients and 11,268 live births in 2005, the latest year that data has been collected by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority.

The treatments are expensive. In Britain, women get one free IVF cycle under the National Health Service.

It costs around &pound5,000 per IVF cycle, which starts with egg production, extraction, fertilisation with sperm and then the implantation of embryos. Average success rates are about 25 per cent, but this goes down with age.

Despite the cost, inconvenience and emotional pain, some patients turn to it for their second and third babies.

Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, are not letting the cost stop couples from turning to IVF.

In 2004, Japan introduced subsidies of up to 100,000 yen (S$1,300) a year for up to two years for low-incomers. That year, IVF contributed 18,000 babies - 1.6 per cent of the total born.

In South Korea, IVF treatment remains expensive: One cycle is 3 million won (S$4,000), 1.5 times the monthly salary of an average city worker. But as part of a government package of baby incentives, middle-income households can get a subsidy of up to 1.5 million won of an IVF bill.

In Taiwan, there are no IVF subsidies. But that has not stopped Ms Chen Su-mi, 38, who went through it and gave birth to a boy two years ago.

'It's all worth it when I see the baby's heart beat on the ultrasound,' she said.

Ms Chen is now pregnant with her second child.

HELP FOR THE STORK

This article was first published in The Straits Times on August 14, 2008.