IVF Children Test the Same As Peers

Since 1981, different types of Western, allopathic fertility treatments have been in use. In the United States there are over 400 clinics that practice advanced fertility medicine and provide assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IUI’s, IVF and genetic testing. As of 2015, about 1-2% of babies born are conceive through some sort of ART fertility therapy, such as an Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) or In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), the U.S. being the country with the most use of this technology, with Japan and Denmark also having high ART activity.

Because Denmark has about 5% of births from ART they decided to track the children and see what, if any, differences there were in terms of academics, looking at over 8,000 children. The new study shows that the children born via ART’s such as IUI and IVF performed equally to their peers. The study also included a final test for the ART children as well as their peers, finding that the ART children had a higher mean test score than the non-ART conceived children; however, after statistical adjustments this disappeared.

This can bee seen as reassuring not only in Denmark, but in all countries that provide assisted reproductive medicine treatments. Although ART is still associated with a slightly increased risk of prematurity and congenital issues, it is important to continue to track these individuals, especially as new treatments are bring developed every day in the field of reproductive medicine.

If you have questions about any kind of assisted reproductive medicine, such as IVF, genetic testing, gender selection, egg donor IVF or surrogacy, feel free to call Santa Monica Fertility with all of your questions and let us know how we can help. It can be a long and overwhelming journey to parenthood, and we are here to help.