News

By Hilary White 

  LONDON, July 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A study of 3,980 articles in medical and scientific journals between 1980 and 2005 has shown significantly higher risks of long-term medical problems for children conceived through artificial procreation such as in vitro fertilisation or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, a method in which a selected sperm is injected into the ovum.
 
  Dr. Alastair Sutcliffe, of the Institute of Child Health at University College London and Dr. Michael Ludwig, of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Gynaecologic Endocrinology in Hamburg, examined the data and have concluded that babies conceived through artificial means should be monitored well into adulthood.
 
  The study showed the risk of miscarriage is between 20 and 34 per cent higher than naturally conceived children. It showed 55 per cent increase in the risk of pre-eclampsia, or hypertension in pregnancy; an increased risk of stillbirth at 155 per cent; low birth weight at 70 to 77 per cent and very low birth weight at 170 to 200 per cent.
 
  Major malformations and cerebral palsy are also significantly more likely with artificially conceived children.
 
  Dr Sutcliffe commented, “In-vitro fertilisation has been done for nearly 30 years; in developed countries at least 1% of births are from ARTs [assisted reproduction techniques]. These children now represent a substantial portion of the population but little is known about their health.”
 
  The study coincides with numerous others showing that IVF and related fertility technologies produce significantly higher rates of serious health problems in children.
 
  Most recently, a study published in the June 21, 2007 issue of Human Reproduction showed that children conceived through IVF visit hospitals significantly more times (1.76 vs. 1.07 times) than naturally conceived children.

  See LifeSiteNews.com’s summary page on IVF here:
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/invitro/