Article by: Dr Zoe Arugay
FYI: IVF babies are those children who were conceived via in vitro fertilization.
With the growing number of women not having kids at a later age for a plethora of reasons, there is a growing number of alternatives available to them. Among these is IVF or in vitro fertilization which involves harvesting eggs from the prospective mother & the sperm from the prospective dad then implanting them into the mother's uterus.But a study conducted in Sweden revealed that children conceived with this process have a higher risk of developing cancer compared to children conceived naturally.
"We found a roughly 50 percent increased risk for cancer in the IVF children, which means that if the risk without IVF is two per 1,000, it increases to three per 1,000 after IVF," explained study author Dr. Bengt Kallen, a professor emeritus in embryology at the Tornblad Institute at the University of Lund in Sweden.
The results will be published in the August issue of Pediatrics, but were posted online July 19.
Babies born using this technology are known to have an increased risk of birth defects and of birth complications, such as preterm birth. Previous research has also suggested that children born through this method of conception may also have an increased risk of cancer.
When the researchers accessed the Swedish Medical Birth Register, they gathered information on almost 27,000 children who were born using IVF in Sweden from 1982 through 2005.
Among the children who had cancer, they found that 53 children born from IVF had developed cancer compared to the expected rate of 38 cases of cancer in non-IVF children.
The most common cancers that occured were cances of the blood, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia affecting 18 children. The next most common were cancers of the eye or central nervous system, affecting 17 children.
Other factors appear to have influenced a kid's risk to cancer as well. These included babies born pre-term, low birth weight, respiratory problems or low Apgar. But there are also factors that are found not to have any significant effect, such as the mother's age, weight, smoking status the number of miscarriages she'd already and multiple birth pregnancy.
Although it isn't clear yet what causes this increase, the study authors think that it is unlikely that the IVF is solely to blame for the increased risk of cancer.
"...It's difficult to think what the biological plausibility would be. If it were something that occurs during the in vitro process or some substance in the media used, I would think that it would cause a much higher number of cancers. This may just be a statistical oddity," said Dr. David Cohen, chief of reproductive medicine at the University of Chicago.
The old college way of coming up with a baby seems the safest way to go. Moreover, the process of going through it is more... uh... rewarding. (Like a fellow doctor once exclaimed, having to go through the pain childbirth without having gone through the natural way of conceiving was unthinkable). However, despite these findings, some experts believe that it will not significantly affect a couple's decision to have IVF. And maybe it wouldn't. When couples have been wanting to have kids badly, they would do anything to experience how it is to be parents no matter the results.
 |
| Click to view more photos of babies Powered by: Picapp |
