The perinatal deaths and adverse consequences related to assisted fertilization (AF) with compare to spontaneous pregnancy could be associated with the causes of infertility rather than the procedure of AF, according to an article published July 31, 2008 in “The Lancet.”

Women of developing countries are delaying childbirth till the age of infertility is about to strike. Consequently, most of them are adopting the assisted reproductive technologies to conceive. High risk of adverse health outcomes in infants has been associated with the assisted fertilization, but it is hard to differentiate between the effects of the procedure itself from the effects, that might be inherent in the birthing couple.

To differentiate between these two effects, reasearchers performed a population-based group study, selecting women older than 20 who had one singleton pregnancy and one after AF. Then infants were examined for birth weight, gestational age, premature birth, and perinatal deaths from 2,546 Norwegian women over 20. These results were compared with rates in 1,200,922 single birth controls and 8,229 AF controls.

It showed that AF conception was related to:

• lower average birth wight by 25 g
• shorter gestation period by 2.0 days
• 26 percent elevated risk of being undersized for gestational age
• 31% percent risk of perinatal death.

Women in whom, factors, other than AF were controlled i.e. the women who had conceived both spontaneously and by AF, the AF babies had:

• a lower average birth weight by 9 g
• a shorter gestation period by 0.6 days
• a similar risk of being undersized for gestational age
• a 200 percent increased risk of perinatal death.

The researchers conclude that “Birthweight, gestational age, preterm delivery and risks for short gestational age, did not differ among infants of women who had conceived in both ways. The adverse outcomes of assisted fertilization that we noted compared with those in the general population could therefore be attributable to the factors leading to infertility, rather than to factors related to the reproductive technology.”

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