Children who are conceived by infertility treatments are not more likely to have a developmental delay by age 3 than typical children, says a new study by the National Institutes of Health and other institutions in the state of New York.
The researchers compared the developmental scores of more than 1,800 children conceived via infertility treatment and those of more than 4,000 children whose mothers did not undergo treatment. No differences were found in the rate of developmental delays in the two groups.
“When we began our study, there was little research on the potential effects of conception via fertility treatments on U.S. children,” said Edwina Yeung, Ph.D., an investigator at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). “Our results provide reassurance to the thousands of couples who have relied on these treatments to establish their families.”
Researchers from the University at Albany, the New York State Department of Health, and CapitalCare Pediatrics in Troy, N. Y. gathered data from the Upstate KIDS study, research which enrolled infants born to women in N.Y. state (except New York City) from 2008 to 2010. Parents of babies whose birth certificates indicated that they had undergone infertility treatments, and parents of twins and multiples were invited to fill out a questionnaire. The participants identified the type of infertility treatment that they had received.
The assistive reproductive technology (ART) included:
In vitro fertilization
Assisted hatching
Gamete intrafallopian transfer
Zygote intrafallopian
Ovulation induction
Intrauterine insemination
Parents completed a survey that screened children for developmental disabilities at ages four to six, eight, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months of age. The five main development areas assessed were: communication skills, fine and gross motor skills, social and personal functioning, and the ability to resolve problems. Children conceived via fertility treatments had similar scores to typical children.
Researchers did find that children conceived through ART had an increased risk of failing one of the five domains, particularly the problem-solving and personal-social areas. Some forms of developmental disabilities cannot be diagnosed by age three, so the study authors intend to monitor the children periodically until they become eight years of age.
