IVF babies are emotionally secure teenagers, Dutch study finds
Last updated 7/6/2010 10:26:01 AM
IVF babies are emotionally secure teenagers
Parents who conceive through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) can rest easy - their children will be just as moody as other teenagers conceived "the old fashioned way" but no more so or less so, according to new research from the Netherlands.
"This is a most important study, very well designed, and very reassuring," said Dr. Sergio Oehninger, medical director of the Jones Institute of Reproductive Medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.
In vitro fertilization, the most technologically advanced of assisted reproductive technologies, involves removing an egg cell from a woman's body, fertilizing it in the lab, and placing it in the woman's womb.
Even though the majority of babies conceived through assisted reproductive technologies are born healthy, current evidence suggests there is a small elevated risk of birth defects. In addition, women who undergo such procedures are more likely to deliver low-birthweight babies than those who conceive naturally.
The Dutch researchers wanted to look at the mind instead of the bodies of IVF children and to know if the procedure had any effect on emotional health, especially during the tumultuous adolescent years.Unlike previous studies which have had conflicting findings, Karin Wagenaar and colleagues at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam went straight to teenagers themselves instead of talking to their parents and teachers.
Teenagers in the study, between the ages of 11 and 18, answered questions about "behavioral, emotional, and social problems" they had faced in the previous six months. The answers of 86 teens conceived through artificial means were compared to those of 97 "control youth."
Those controls were conceived naturally, but after their parents reported fertility problems, so the researchers could limit the impact of either the genetic or emotional influences of infertility."That's excellent, the most important part of this study," Oehninger told Reuters Health . The Dutch researchers found virtually no difference between "problem scores" of the IVF and control kids or in the percentage of kids from either group falling outside the "normal range."
"Neither IVF conception as such nor growing up as a child of parents who used IVF seems to be an adverse condition for behaviour and psychosocial well-being in adolescence," the authors conclude.
Source: www.reuters.com
More on IVF on Good Optimist News