Fertility technique doesn’t affect development

	Tweet

Children born following so-called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) do not differ from children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or children conceived naturally in mental or motor abilities at 5 years of age, a multinational study shows.

ICSI involves injecting a sperm directly into an egg, under a microscope. Because the technique bypasses natural sperm-selection barriers, and may use less than ideal sperm, there have been concerns that this could have repercussions for children born as a result of the process, Dr. A. G. Sutcliffe and colleagues explain in the medical journal Pediatrics.

Sutcliffe, at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, and associates tested 511 children conceived by ICSI, 424 conceived by IVF and 488 conceived naturally. The subjects were recruited from clinics in five European countries.

Children were approximately 5 years old when they underwent testing. The researchers found no differences among the groups on verbal IQ, performance IQ or full-scale IQ scales, or on tests of motor skills.

“No interaction effects were found between the mode of conception and demographic variables, indicating that these results were not influenced by gender, nationality, maternal educational level, or maternal age at the time of birth,” Sutcliffe’s team reports.

Only in the subgroup of first-born children with mothers who gave birth between ages 33 to 45 did naturally conceived children score significantly better on the verbal and full-scale scores compared with those born by assisted reproductive technology.

Even in this subgroup, however, the difference was less than 1 IQ point higher in the naturally conceived group, suggesting that the difference had “no clinical relevance.”

SOURCE: Pediatrics, March 2005.

RELATED STORIES:
Barcodes may help protect couples seeking IVF   Thyroid trouble may be missed in pregnant women   Worry affects female fertility   Drinking by men or women affects miscarriage risk   Increased Stroke Risk from Birth Control Pills   Aspirin ups success of test tube fertilization   Weighing the costs of fertility treatments   Treatment preserves fertility after uterine cancer   New guidelines to protect frozen sperm, embryos   Sterility following vasectomy may take time   “Infertile” British woman has baby - report   Fertility seen normal in women with celiac disease

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]