New risks for IVF fertility treatment
Posted at 11:31 AM on Thursday, July 29, 2010
Women who undergo IVF treatment face a higher risk of death than women who have babies naturally. The risk of women dying after the fertility treatment is three times greater than those who conceive naturally according to a recent study carried out in the Netherlands.
Didi Braat, professor of obstetrics at Radboud University in Nijmegen, who led the research said: ‘Women should be counselled and made aware of the risks they are taking and deaths should be properly reported.’ Braat studied deaths between 1984 and 2008, identifying that 17 women who had died in pregnancy had undergone IVF treatment, forming a death rate of 42.5% for every 100,000 pregnancies, compared with 12.1 in every 100,000 for women who had conceived naturally.
Around 450 of the 13,000 IVF births in Britain each year are the result of donor eggs, which has been connected to increased risks of hypertension and placenta complications. In addition the rising age of mothers is also an essential factor, with a 50% rise in women over the age of 40 giving birth last year. Figures collected by the Centre for Maternal and Child Health Enquiries (CMACE) show an upward trend in deaths during childbirth of mothers over the age of 40. Swedish researchers have also found a link between IVF children and cancer. A study showed that out of 26,000 children born through IVF, 53 developed cancer in comparison to an estimated 38 cases in a similar group of naturally conceived children. Finnish studies also suggest babies born through IVF have a raised risk of prematurity and low birth weight.