Nearly three in 10 women aged under 35 who undergo fertility treatment are successful – almost three times as many as when the process was developed in 1978.

Anthony Douglas, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), told The Daily Telegraph: “IVF used to be around 7% successful and now it’s around 30%.

“So as a choice, adoption is competing with lots of other ways of having children.”

The number of children in care has increased in England – the figure stood at 72,670 as of March 31 2017 – but the number of adoptions has fallen in recent years to 4,350 in 2017, down from 5,360 in 2015.

Mr Douglas, who will step down from his role next year, also said the wait for children to find their “forever home” was too long.

He told the paper: “Every child deserves a family to live and grow up in but adoption still takes twice as long as it should, which puts people off.”

In England the average time between entry into care and being adopted has fallen from 30 months to 24 months in 2017, according to figures from the Department of Education.

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