IVF ‘May Increase Risk Of Stillborn Babies’
Reported February 24, 2010
Women who undergo certain fertility treatments are more likely to have a stillborn baby than those who get pregnant the natural way, a study has claimed.
The risk of stillbirth increases fourfold with both in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), according to scientists.
The study’s authors, from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, suggested the fertility treatments themselves may be responsible for the increased risk.
Their research, published in the journal Human Reproduction, looked at 20,000 Danish pregnancies from 1989 to 2006.
Overall, the risk of stillbirth among the mothers was 4.3 per 1,000 births.
But while the risk of stillbirth in women who conceived after IVF or ICSI was 16.2 per 1,000 births, the risk after other fertility treatment was just 2.3 per 1,000.
The results held true even when factors like age, smoking and alcohol were taken into account.
Dr Kirsten Wisborg, who led the study, said more research was needed on whether it was the fertility treatment or other factors linked to infertile couples which was causing more stillbirths.
But she noted that the risk was similar between fertile couples, “sub-fertile” couples who took longer to conceive, and women who conceived after fertility treatment which was not IVF.
“This may indicate that the increased risk of stillbirth is not explained by infertility and may be due to other, as yet unexplained, factors,” she said.
These could be the technology involved in IVF/ICSI or some “physiological difference” in the couples that require IVF/ICSI, she suggested.
The team stressed that the chance of a stillbirth was still very low even after IVF or ICSI treatment.
Professor Peter Braude, head of the Department of Women’s Health at King’s College London, said: “The finding that infertility per se did not account for the increased stillbirth rate is novel and interesting.
“However, whether the substantial risk of stillbirth is substantiated must await a larger study.”
Source : Sky News
