Washington (OTL) - It appears that using assisted reproductive technology, commonly called fertility treatments, can raise the chances of your baby having certain types of birth defects.
New federal research conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Preventionshows that a baby born through in vitro fertilization or through implantation with donor eggs has a 6%-12% chance of having congenital defects.
In a normal pregnancy, that number is only 3%. Although it does show the increase, these results are still considered quite low. In addition, this risk is only posed to some of the congenital defects. These range from heart anomalies to cleft lips and gastrointestinal defects. They found that there was two times the risk of a heart defect, more than two times the risk of a cleft lip, and more than four time the risk of gastrointestinal defects.
“I think it is important for couples to consider the fact that there may be a risk for birth defects,” said Jennita Reefhuis, first author of the study. According to a 2002 national study, 12% of women ages 15-44 in the United States seek assisted reproductive technology.
Assisted Reproduction does not seem to affect multiple births in this way, however. It might be that carrying and birthing multiples carries it’s own risks, so this new risk is negligable.
This study was conducted at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. It compared 281 births using ART with more than 14,000 naturally conceived births. The study was published in the journal Human Reproduction.