Study claims higher rate of birth problems with IVF
The study, which compared the outcomes of hundreds of thousands of births, looked at the risk of stillbirth, low birth weight, premature birth and infant death.
Both traditional IVF, involving fertilisation in a glass dish, and the injection of sperm directly into eggs increased the chances of complications, the Australian researchers found.
But a leading British fertility expert stressed that many of the problems may be related to patients’ infertility rather than IVF treatment.
Scientists from theUniversity of Adelaidestudied 17 years of datafrom more than 300,000 births in South Australia, of which 4,300 were theresult of assisted reproduction.
All forms of available fertility treatment were assessed, including traditional In-Vitro Fertilisation, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (Icsi) — injecting sperm straight into eggs — ovulation induction, and freezing embryos.
“Compared with spontaneous conceptions in couples with no record of infertility, singleton babies from assisted conception were almost twice as likely to be stillborn, more than twice as likely to be pre-term, almost three times as likely to have very low birth weight, and twice as likely to die within the first 28 days of birth,” said study leader Professor Michael Davies, from the University of Adelaide’s Robinson Institute.
However fertility expert Dr Dagan Wells, from Oxford University, said: “Perhaps the most striking finding is that rates of prematurity, low birth-weight and infant death were highest of all for couples who had a fertility problem but eventually succeeded in conceiving without the help of IVF,” said Dr Wells.
“This suggests that the problems seen for babies born after IVF may be related to the patient’s infertility rather than the treatment itself. In fact, for couples with reduced fertility, IVF seemed to lessen these risks compared to natural conception.”
