Teenagers born through fertility treatment have a one percent higher prevalence of mental health disorders, but no difference in school performance, new study shows.
Using registered data from over 280,000 Finnish children born between 1995 and 2000, this observational study compared social and mental health data of 16–18-year-old adolescents conceived naturally or via fertility treatment (IVF, ovulation induction, intrauterine insemination, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection).
'What we're seeing here is mostly reassuring; children conceived through medically assisted reproduction do better overall and are in fact not more disadvantaged in terms of mental health outcomes. However, the fact that we observe an increased risk of mental health disorders once we account for family characteristics could be a cause for concern and merits further attention in future research,' said co-author on the study, Dr Alice Goisis, associate professor in demography, University College London (UCL).
Mental health outcomes measured in this study include antidepressant use, admission to a specialised care facility and high-risk health behaviours, such as substance abuse or intention to self-harm. The study reported that teenagers conceived via fertility treatment generally had a more advantaged family background, with older parents who have a higher level of education and income. This advantaged background may mean that teenagers born through fertility treatment have a greater access to medical care and are more likely to receive a mental health diagnosis.
In an observational study of this type, it is difficult to interpret findings due to confounding factors. To overcome this, researchers compared siblings in the same family who were naturally conceived versus those conceived via fertility treatment. Within families, which were only a small proportion of the study group, ten percent of teenagers conceived via fertility treatment had a mental health diagnosis, which only nine percent of their naturally conceived siblings had. Anxiety and depression were the most diagnosed disorders.
These results only show an association between fertility treatment and mental health disorders and provide no evidence that the fertility treatment in any way causes poor mental health.
Adolescents born through fertility treatment had better social outcomes, including school grades and pursuit of higher education, however, when family situations were taken into account, these findings did not persist.
'As it stands there are no real-world implications of this study, and it would be absolutely wrong to interpret this study as suggesting IVF leads to mental health problems in teenagers,' said Alastair Sutcliffe, professor of general paediatrics at UCL, who was not involved in the study. 'A small difference in those who had naturally conceived siblings in some weak proxy measures of mental health would be most likely explained by residual confounding, meaning that other factors could have been behind this small difference, rather than the IVF itself.'
This research was published in the European Journal of Population.
Sources and References
-
The well-being of adolescents conceived through medically assisted reproduction: A population-level and within-family analysis
-
Association of children conceived via infertility treatments with school and mental health outcomes
-
Babies born through IVF end up being smarter teenagers... but are more prone to depression and anxiety, study finds
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.