Goisis A, et al. - In this study, investigators assessed the children conceived by medically assisted reproduction and observed an elevated risk of adverse birth consequences among them. Although, they noticed that this increased hazard was widely related to determinants other than the medically assisted reproduction treatment.

Methods

• They collected data from Finnish administrative registers covering a 20% random sample of households with at least one child (aged 0–14 years at the end of 2000) (n=65,723).
• They estimated gestational age, birth weight, the risk of low birth weight, and risk of preterm birth among kids conceived by medically assisted reproduction and naturally, both.
• Using standard multivariate methods that controlled for observed factors like multiple births, birth order, and parental sociodemographic characteristics, they first calculated variations in birth consequences by mode of conception in the general population.
• Then, they used a sibling-comparison approach which had not used before in medically assisted reproduction research.
• Children conceived by medically assisted reproduction were then compared with siblings conceived naturally and, thus, controlled for all observed and unobserved determinants shared by siblings.

Results

• A sum of 2776 (4%) children in were conceived by medically assisted reproduction and 1245 kids were included in the sibling comparison between 1995 and 2000.
• They observed worse outcomes in children conceived by medically assisted reproduction as compared to those conceived naturally, even after adjusting for observed child and parental characteristics such as difference in birthweight of −60 g (95% CI −86 to −34) and 2·15 percentage point (95% CI 1·07 to 3·24) higher risk of preterm labor.
• They noticed attenuated gap in birth consequences in the sibling comparison such that the association between medically assisted reproduction and adverse birth outcomes was statistically and substantively weak for all outcomes like difference in birthweight of −31 g (95% CI −85 to 22) and 1·56 percentage point (95% CI −1·26 to 4·38) greater risk of preterm delivery.