Long-term outcomes for children conceived by assisted reproductive technology.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing existing literature without systematic review methodology.
PubMed 37086833 · doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2023.04.022
What was done
This narrative review synthesized published evidence on short- and long-term health outcomes among children conceived through assisted reproductive technology (ART). It evaluated outcomes associated with fresh versus frozen embryo transfers compared to spontaneous conception, and examined whether observed risks stem from ART procedures or underlying parental subfertility.
What was found
The abstract reports established short-term risks, including higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weight following fresh embryo transfer, higher rates of high birth weight and large-for-gestational-age infants following frozen embryo transfer, and persistently elevated rates of birth defects across ART conceptions. For long-term health, available studies indicate an increased risk of altered blood pressure and cardiovascular dysfunction in ART-conceived offspring. The abstract reports no numerical risk estimates or effect sizes.
Why it matters
With more than 10 million individuals conceived through ART globally, identifying potential long-term cardiometabolic risks helps guide clinical monitoring and future improvements in reproductive protocols.
Limits
As a narrative review, it lacks systematic search criteria, quality appraisal, and meta-analytic pooling. Specific effect sizes, confidence intervals, and total sample counts are absent from the abstract. Additionally, separating the effects of ART techniques from intrinsic maternal and paternal subfertility factors remains a major methodological challenge in the evaluated literature.
Cited by
- supports Approximately 6 million babies have been born globally through in vitro fertilization.