New research finds IVF isn’t why some babies are born premature or smaller

By Joe Morgan via SWNS

IVF is not the reason that some test-tube babies are born premature or smaller, according to new research.

Family circumstances are more likely to play a larger part in size and health of the baby than in reproductive technology, say scientists.

Around two percent of babies born in Britain annually are a result of IVF, with around 20,000 babies a year delivered this way.

While there is some suggestion medically assisted reproduction (MAR) like IVF treatment, artificial insemination and fertility-enhancing drugs has a slightly higher risk, genetics and other circumstances are clearly more important to consider.

New research found children who were conceived through MAR were 10 percent more likely to be born premature and had nine percent greater odds of being born small than naturally conceived infants.

But in the study of around 250,000 US families, the difference between naturally conceived children and medically assisted reproduction was insignificant when family circumstances are considered.

The research then focused on a subgroup of mothers who had given birth to both MAR and naturally conceived children over an eight-year period.

After accounting for mother’s age at birth, pre-pregnancy BMI, and infants’ birth characteristics, the differences in pregnancy term and children’s birth weight between siblings disappeared, suggesting that family circumstances and unobserved parental characteristics, such as genetic traits, are important factors in explaining the association between MAR and children’s adverse birth outcomes.

"Rather than the infertility treatment itself, our new findings highlight the importance of parents’ underlying fertility problems and health conditions, and infants’ birth characteristics, such as their birth order and whether they are a twin, on birth weight and pregnancy term,"said Dr. Alina Pelikh, research fellow at the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.

“We found limited evidence of the effects of medically assisted reproduction treatments on pregnancy term and birth weight through comparing siblings’ birth outcomes, which is in line with existing studies from the Nordic countries.”

Dr. Alice Goisis, an associate professor at the same university, said, “Obtaining similar results in highly diverse contexts - in terms of demographics, fertility rates and access to the medically assisted reproduction treatments - strengthens the argument that adverse birth outcomes among medically assisted reproduction conceived infants are unlikely to be driven by the reproductive technology itself.

“This new evidence can go on to enrich existing health guidance about the risks and benefits of infertility treatments, hopefully raising awareness among families who are thinking about using medically assisted reproduction to help them conceive.”

The study was published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynaecology.