LONDON, October 23, 2002 (LSN.ca) - British health authorities have been asked to investigate problems among children conceived through artificial fertility methods, including a greater likelihood of birth defects. Two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine this year suggest that test-tube babies are more likely to be underweight and born with a major birth defect. An estimated 1 million babies worldwide have been conceived through IVF since Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in 1978 after being transported, as an embyro, inside a rabbit before insertion into her mother’s womb. For two sample abstracts from the New England Journal of Medicine see: “Low and Very Low Birth Weight in Infants Conceived with Use of Assisted Reproductive Technology”: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/346/10/731?maxtoshow=&HITS=20&hits=20&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=underweight+fertility&searchid=1035390170054_16500&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=PUBDATE_SORTDATE+desc+Score+desc&fdate=1/1/2001&tdate=10/31/2002&journalcode=nejm
and “The Risk of Major Birth Defects after Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection and in Vitro Fertilization”: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/346/10/725?maxtoshow=&HITS=20&hits=20&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=underweight+fertility&searchid=1035390170054_16500&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=PUBDATE_SORTDATE+desc+Score+desc&fdate=1/1/2001&tdate=10/31/2002&journalcode=nejm