Israeli experts delivered good news last month: Contrary to what has been previously mentioned in some scientific literature, ART-assisted pregnancies do not lead to higher risk of cardiovascular disease in children, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The ten-year-long study conducted by experts from Beer Sheva’s Soroka Medical Center and the Ben-Gurion University followed close to a quarter million children conceived spontaneously and over 4,500 children conceived with the help of ARTs (including drug treatment, hormonal injections and IVF). The findings were presented at an Israel Association for the Study of Fertility conference.
The rates of cardiovascular disease amongst infants were similar for both groups – roughly 0.6%. Thus, no evidence of ART children having an increased risk at developing heart conditions at an early age was noted.
Another study conducted at Soroka followed mothers who gave birth at the hospital between the years 1988 and 2011. 4,000 amongst the 100,000 women monitored had become pregnant by means of ART (including IVF). The findings show that women who underwent assisted reproductive treatments did not have higher rates of cardiovascular disease later in life (3% of women who underwent fertility treatment developed heart disease, as opposed to 3.3% of women in the control group).
