Link: https://doaj.org/article/9a2380214315480da590b1add9218ea1

ART (assisted reproductive techniques) have grown to be an alternative to conception for couples who are infertile. However, as it is not a natural procedure, it comes with certain risks that can affect the mother during pregnancy and the child during and after birth.

To increase the success rate of the pregnancy, usually more than one fertilized egg is implanted into the woman’s uterus for implantation and this can result in multiple (twins) births.

Going into a bit more detail, ART results in several pregnancy complications such as stillbirth and premature births. Along with these complications, there is an increased rate of ART infants needing more attention after birth to confirm proper development and healthy conditions. The number of death rate is also higher in ART conceived births.

This paper took their sample data for naturally and ART conceived births, from a woman’s hospital. They extracted details about the pregnancy outcomes and complications, number of deaths and related health conditions and input these into a logistics regression model and found the adjusted odds ratios to determine the association of the complications/outcomes/conditions with the form of pregnancy (natural or ART).

Table 4 presents what I think are the most important findings of the paper, which are the adjusted odds ratios and p values of the complications. These can help hypothesize which complications are more associated with ART pregnancies.

From the results, the researchers concluded that multiple birth pregnancies are at a greater risk of post-birth complications, if they were ART pregnancies. They found that multiple births are, “associated with four to ten times greater perinatal mortality compared to singleton gestations”. Due to these known complications, women who are giving birth to more than one child and has undergone ART treatment are more closely looked after in case of the need of surgical deliveries.

I chose this paper because I am interested in pregnancy complications and the effects of the fertilization methods on the development of the infant. Since ART is a developing method nowadays and with the desire to go into the field, I believe it is important to be aware of the most recent techniques in the field and gain knowledge on “what’s going on now”.