IVF doesn’t contribute to developmental delays in children

The Mail Online has reported that the risk of developmental delays in children who are conceived via IVF or other infertility treatments is the same as naturally conceived children.

More research in a larger population, including a wider spread of people who have received the different forms of infertility treatments, is now required to confirm these findings.

The researchers found out that the children who were conceived through fertility treatments were not likely to display any developmental delays at the age of 3 same as with the children born naturally.

Children conceived with assisted reproductive technology have similar early childhood development as other children, after multiple births are taken into account, according to a new study, reports Reuters.

This is good news for the large and growing number of parents who are using fertility treatments to help them conceive children and start a family of their own.

In order to reach the findings, the researchers observed more than 5,800 children who were born in NY between the year 2008 and 2010. Information on developmental delays was gathered at the fourth, eighth, twelfth, 24, 30, and 36 months after the children’s birth.

Similarly, the researchers found no differences in the percentage of single born children in the two groups who were referred for evaluation by developmental specialists (21.2 per cent compared to 20.7 per cent).

The study’s results were published this week in JAMA Pediatrics.

Infertility services or medications used by some mothers in the study included oral or injectable medicines that stimulate ovulation, or ovulation induction plus intrauterine insemination, or so-called assisted reproductive technology, such as in vitro fertilization, frozen embryo transfer or donor eggs or embryos.

“In response to critical data gaps, we designed the Upstate KIDS Study to specifically assess the association between the mode of conception and children’s development through age 3 years”, say the authors. But many others have found no such link, the researchers noted, told the Philly. “You have to be able to differentiate those potential effects from any effects of the fertility treatment, per se”, affirmed Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director of the Center for Human Reproduction, in New York City. Babies recruited include singletons, twins and other multiples.

The questionnaire covered five main developmental areas: fine motor skills, gross motor skills, communication, personal and social functioning, and problem solving ability. The researchers said that 13% of children conceived through IVF had a delay and 18% of the ones not conceived with treatment had a delay.

Techniques like IVF have been associated with increased risk of failing a development domain and it is also known to raise the vulnerability to multiple births and low birth weight.

These findings, according to the researchers, indicate that infertility treatment does not affect the development of offspring up to the age of 3 years.

The child’s development was assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), which is validated for early identification of developmental delays.