What is the risk to offspring from assisted reproduction?
The rate of malformations across all assisted reproduction technology procedures is higher than that of the general population.
“If you look at large databases (this is now tens of thousands of offspring) there is about a 30% increase in malformation rates across all ART procedures,” says Professor Robert McLachlan, Director of Andrology Australia.
While the background rate in the population is around four malformations per 100 live births, for ART it increases to five or six per 100.
“Now, some are significant issues and some of them are quite trivial,” says Professor McLachlan.
“Everyone is aware of that. The patients are informed of that.”
Professor McLachlan says it is not the ART treatments themselves that cause the higher rate of malformations.
“It’s what the infertile couple bring in terms of their underlying condition,” he says. “It is something that’s intrinsic to them, not the means of fertislisation.”
In this video, Professor McLachlan discusses:
– Why use intracytoplasmic sperm injection instead of in vitro fertilisation?
– Why is in virto fertisation decreasing as a fertility treatment?
– What is the risk to offspring from assisted reproduction?
