Fertility Benefits

Findings published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2022.

This meta study looked at singleton premature birth data submitted by 50 states and the District of Columbia to the United States National Vital Statistics System database. All mothers in the database who had a singleton live birth from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2019, were included. Those who had preexisting hypertension or diabetes were excluded. The final sample consisted of 14,370,920 mothers (mean [SD] age, 28.79 [5.79] years) with singleton live births were included.

• Compared with the natural conception group, the risk of very preterm birth was 68% higher in the ART group and 46% higher in the non-ART treatment group. 

• Risk of extremely pre-term birth increased by 88% in the ART group and by 83% in the non-ART treatment group compared with the natural conception group after full adjustment. These results remained statistically significant after Bonferroni correction. 

• Stratified analyses by maternal age, race and ethnicity, pre-pregnancy BMI, gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes, eclampsia, history of preterm delivery, history of cesarean delivery, and neonate sex were conducted. The neonates who were conceived with ART or non-ART treatment had a higher risk of preterm birth in almost all subgroups. 

• After excluding these potential confounders simultaneously, the odds of preterm birth were 58% higher in the ART group and 42% higher in the non-ART treatment group compared with the natural conception group. 

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) (defined as fertility treatments in which eggs or embryos are handled in the laboratory with the purpose of establishing a pregnancy, such as in vitro fertilization with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection) and non-ART fertility treatments (defined as fertility drugs that induce or enhance ovulation in women and are used with timed intercourse or intrauterine insemination but with no intention of performing ART) have been used to help millions of people all over the world overcome infertility. (National Library of Medicine website, 2023)