France's biomedicine agency is calling for more sperm and egg donations, saying the number of donors is "insufficient" to meet increasing demand.
A law passed in 2021 opened up reimbursement for assisted reproductive technology such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or freezing ova to female couples and single women.
These procedures had originally only been available for heterosexual couples or for medical reasons.
The legal change has, however, led to long delays for these types of medical procedures and an "unprecedented increase" in demand, according to France's biomedicines agency.
There have been more than 20,000 first consultations for assisted reproduction with sperm donation, and more than 7,000 first tries for female couples or single women since 2021, the agency said.
First attempts increased from nearly 2,000 in 2022 to more than 5,000 in 2023, the agency added.
Meanwhile, more than 7,600 women are waiting for a sperm donation for assisted reproduction, with an average wait of over 15 months.
There were 676 sperm donor candidates in 2023 whereas at least 1,400 were needed annually to respond to high demand, the agency added, with new recruitment actions planned this year.
For egg donation, there is also high demand and an insufficient number of donations, with heterosexual couples making up 88 per cent of those requesting ova.
Since opening up the possibility for women to freeze their eggs, there have been more than 26,000 requests for first consultations. A large majority of them came from women aged 35 to 37.
The average delay was 10 months across the country to do so.
