The risk of being born with congenital heart disease is 36% higher for children born with assisted reproduction methods such as IVF. This was shown in a very large new study published in the scientific journal European Society of Cardiology (“Babies born after fertility treatment have higher risk of heart defects“).
According to the researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who led the study, the finding is important given that congenital heart defects are the most common form of health problems present at birth – some of which are associated with life-threatening complications.
The risk is greater in multiple pregnancies
The study also found that the risk of a heart problem was mainly related to multiple pregnancies, which are known to be more common after assisted reproduction methods.
According to the head of the study, Professor Ulla-Brit Vennerholm from the University of Gothenburg, “previous studies have shown that there are increased risks for children conceived with assisted reproduction methods such as the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. “We wanted to investigate whether the risk of congenital heart disease was higher for children conceived by assisted reproduction methods.”
The study included all live births that occurred in Denmark between 1994 and 2014, in Finland between 1990 and 2014, in Norway between 1984 and 2015 and in Sweden between 1987 and 2015 – more than 7.7 million in total.
The researchers compared data on babies born using different assisted reproductive methods such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and embryo freezing with data on babies conceived naturally.
The other factors taken into account
They looked at how many children in each group were diagnosed with a serious heart defect either during their life in the womb or during their first year. In fact, the scientists took into account other factors that can increase the risk of congenital heart diseases such as the mother’s age, the mother’s smoking during pregnancy, whether the mother suffered from diabetes or a heart problem, as well as the year of birth and the country of birth of each child.
Increased risk regardless of method
The analysis showed that congenital heart disease was 36% more common in children born using assisted reproduction methods compared to babies conceived naturally. In fact, the risk was equally increased regardless of the type of assisted reproduction method used (IVF or ICSI, use of frozen or non-frozen embryos). However, the greatest risk appeared to concern multiple pregnancies after the use of assisted reproduction methods.
An increase in cases worldwide is expected
The head of the study emphasized that congenital heart diseases can be extremely serious requiring difficult specialized interventions at the beginning of children’s lives. “So knowing which babies are at increased risk of these types of heart problems can help us diagnose them early so we can get them the right care and treatment. More and more women are conceiving using assisted reproduction methods, so we should probably expect an increase in cases of congenital heart disease worldwide.”
2%-8% of births are “assisted”
In an accompanying article to the study, Dr. Nathalie Auzer from the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center in Canada and her colleagues pointed out that “assisted reproductive technologies are extremely popular in reproductive medicine – they involve 2%-8% of births depending on the country. Although most babies born with these technologies are healthy, such procedures are not without risks. One of the largest studies to date has shown that assisted reproductive technologies are associated with an increased risk of serious congenital heart defects diagnosed before birth or within the first year of life. Patients who use these assisted reproductive technologies tend to differ from the general population. They tend to have underlying diseases that affect their fertility but also the risk of congenital heart disease in their children.”
