Birth Defects and IVF

There has just been an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning this issue which is why I thought the subject deserved a blog. This paper showed an association between babies born from assisted reproductive technologies having a slightly increased risk of birth defects. What was important about this study is that it also looked at couples who had fertility issues but who managed to conceive spontaneously. This is valuable as we all want to know is this observed association due to the drugs and the lab processes involved in an IVF programme or is it due to the possibly suboptimal sperm and eggs which are causing a couple's infertility. This new study showed a similar increase in birth defects in couples with infertility who then conceived without treatment. This is a new finding.
They also found that the increase in birth defects was in children born after ICSI but not IVF. Children born from frozen and then thawed embryos showed no increase in birth defects even when they were from ICSI cycles. Possible explanations for this include a reduced chance of a suboptimal embryo surviving the thawing process or the absence of ovarian stimulating drugs.
It is really important that all people going through fertility treatments are aware of these findings and can make real informed decisions about their options going forward.