Fertility Treatments: Pros and Cons
Reported May 21, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Moms thinking about conceiving using fertility treatments should weigh the pros and cons more carefully, new research suggests.
Two recent studies provide conflicting answers on whether or not assisted reproductive technology and frozen embryos leads to healthy babies.
One study showed twins born as a result of assisted reproductive technology (ART) had a nearly two-thirds higher risk of being admitted into neonatal intensive care and a higher risk of being hospitalized in their first three years of life, compared to spontaneously conceived twins. Their risk of prenatal death also doubled. In addition, ART twins stayed longer in the hospital than normally conceived twins at the time of their birth, an average of 12 days compared to eight days.
We don’t know the reason for the increased risk of adverse parental outcome and hospitalization, and preliminary analysis of specific diagnosis does not provide any answers,” researcher Michele Hansen, Ph.D., a student at the Telethon Institute for Child Research in Western Australia, was quoted saying. The underlying causes of parental infertility and/or components of the ART procedure may be increasing the risks of adverse outcome, and increased concern about children born after a long period of infertility may also be contributing to their increased risk of hospitalization.”
In contrast, a second study found that embryos that had been frozen shortly after they started to divide had a healthier preterm birth, compared to children born from fresh cycles of in vitro fertilization or sperm injection.
The study, led by Dr. Ulla-Britt Wennerholm, an obstetrician at the Institute for Clinical Sciences at Sahlgrenska Academy in Goteborg, Sweden, reviewed evidence from 21 studies that reported on prenatal or child outcomes after freezing or vitrification.
Slow freezing embryos has been used for 25 years, and data concerning infant outcome seems reassuring, with even higher birth weights and lower rates of preterm birth and low birth weights, than children born after fresh in vitro fertilization or sperm injection,” Dr. Wennerholm was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: Human Reproduction, May 2009