united cerebral palsy association
Is There a Link Between Fertility Treatment and Cerebral Palsy?
Perhaps you are in the situation where you would do just about anything to have a child. You and spouse may not be able to conceive. If you can’t get approved to adopt a child, you may begin to feel depressed about it. If you love children, you may want an army of rug rats running around your house. Then, just when you thought you have tried everything, perhaps you have decided to consider fertility treatment. After your spouse thinks about it, you decide to undergo the treatment to increase your chances of having a child.
If you are one of the 150,000 women trying to get pregnant using the assisted reproduction treatment, there is new research available that should get your attention. A study pouring over 590,000 births in Denmark between 1995 and 2003 found that children conceived through fertility treatment had an increased risk of developing cerebral palsy. Research revealed that assisted reproduced children were twice more likely to be diagnosed with the disorder. This is compared to those naturally conceived.
According to the United Cerebral Palsy Association, more than 500,000 people are living with the disorder. The statistic only consists of Americans. Cerebral palsy is viewed as a group of disorders instead of just one. The most common type is spastic cerebral palsy. Symptoms include tight muscles and joints that are unable to stretch out, abnormal walking, and weak muscles.
Other cerebral palsy types include dyskinetic, ataxic, hypotonic, and mixed. The disorder usually develops when the child is still in the womb. Parents don’t usually start seeing signs of the disorder until the child is three months to two years old. Causes of cerebral palsy can be bleeding in the child’s brain, infections contracted from the mother, head injury, or severe jaundice. Jaundice is a condition in a child where high levels of bilirubin are found in the child’s blood leading to the skin and whites of its eyes becoming yellow. The study from Denmark shows the increase risk of cerebral palsy could be because the number of embryos implanted into the mother during fertility treatment.
Typically, fertility treatment removes eggs from the mother and combines them with sperm from the father. It is all done in a lab. Then, multiple embryos are placed back in the mother to see if she becomes pregnant. Many times, the mother will give birth to more than one child. Usually, the child or children will be born preterm.
The researchers in the study believe these multi-births and preterm labors are what cause the heightened risk of cerebral palsy. In both the United States and Europe, the risk of a child having cerebral palsy is low compared other disorders. Other studies show normal risk of the disorder is one out of 1,000 children will display cerebral palsy symptoms.
Of the 590,000 births, only 0.2 percent of the children had cerebral palsy. Those who were in the in vitro fertilization group were doubled compared to the typical statistic. Children conceived with fertility drugs were 55 percent higher than the IVF group alone. These are important findings that any couple considering using fertility treatments should consider before going forward with the procedure.