FRIDAY, Sept. 27, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Babies conceived using assisted reproductive technology are more likely to be born with a major heart defect, new research shows.
That risk was 36 percent higher in babies conceived through techniques such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). Some congenital heart defects are life-threatening.
The increased risk is especially pronounced with multiple births, which are more common in assisted reproduction.
“Previous research shows that there is an increased risk of babies being conceived with the help of assisted reproductive technology,” said study author Ulla-Britt Wennerholm, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg. , in Sweden. “These include premature birth and low birth weight. We wanted to investigate whether the risk of heart defects was higher for babies born after assisted reproduction.”
His team looked at data from more than 7.7 million births in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, some dating back to the late 1980s.
They compared data from babies conceived naturally and those born after assisted reproduction, including IVF, sperm injection and embryo freezing. They looked at how many babies in each group had a serious heart defect, either in the womb or during their first year of life. They also considered other potential factors, such as nationality, the mother’s age and whether she had smoked during pregnancy or had diabetes or heart defects.
The result: heart defects were about 36% more common in babies born through assisted reproduction than in those conceived naturally. The overall risk remained small: 1.84 percent versus 1.15 percent.
The risk was higher for multiple births after assisted reproduction: 2.47 percent versus 1.62 percent for singleton births.
The findings were recently published in the journal Human Reproduction.
“The fact that the risk of heart defect is similar regardless of the type of assisted reproduction used could indicate that there is some common factor underlying infertility in parents and congenital heart disease in their babies,” Wennerholm said in a magazine press release.
Knowing which babies are most at risk can speed diagnosis and care, she said.
“More and more people are conceiving with the help of assisted reproductive technology, so we might expect to see increases in cases of congenital heart defects around the world,” Wennerholm noted.
Dr. Nathalie Auger of the University of Montreal co-authored an editorial that accompanied the study.
“Patients who use assisted reproductive technology tend to differ from the general population,” he noted. “These patients may have underlying morbidities that affect both fertility and risk of heart defects.”
More information
Learn more about congenital heart defects from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, press release, September 26, 2024
