Male Fertility Technique
Produces Healthy Kids

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Children born after a technique used to treat male infertility are as physically and mentally healthy as children conceived naturally, a study of 5-year olds shows.

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), in which a single sperm is injected into an egg, has allowed men with poor quality sperm or low sperm counts to become fathers, but doctors were concerned that it could increase the risk a baby would be born with abnormalities.

"This study provides further evidence of the safety of today's treatment methods," said researcher Professor Andre Van Steirteghem, from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels in Belgium, at a meeting in Prague.

"This confirms that these techniques can help infertile couples to have the children they have wanted for so long, and that the future health prospects of children conceived in this way are just as good as those for naturally conceived children."

Van Steirteghem and colleagues are due to present the results of their study this weekend at a conference on infertility organized by the Bertarelli Foundation in the Czech capital.

The study included 300 children born after ICSI in Belgium, Sweden and the USA, and 266 children of similar age conceived naturally who were recruited via schools and national and local birth registration records. The children were an average of 5 years old when the study was done.

A pediatrician and psychologist examined all the children for their physical and psychological development, including tests to measure development and behavior.

The mothers were also surveyed by means of a written questionnaire to evaluate the amount of stress they experienced raising their children.

Like earlier studies, the researchers found that the average birth weight for ICSI children was noticeably lower--on average 3.317 kg versus 3.420 kg, or about 7.3 pounds versus 7.5 pounds. More complications soon after birth were seen, "but these did not have any subsequent effects in terms of chronic illnesses and surgical interventions," the Bertarelli Foundation said in a statement.

Physiotherapy and speech therapy services had been used slightly more frequently by ICSI children, but height, weight and general physical examinations didn't show any differences between the two groups of children. The rates of chronic diseases were also the same.

The analysis of the children's psychology could find no difference between ICSI and naturally conceived children. ICSI mothers experienced the same level of stress as mothers of naturally conceived children.

"Although some differences were found in neonatal outcome, results indicate that there were no major differences in the general health and growth of ICSI children at the age of 5 years compared to (naturally conceived) children," the authors conclude.

Reference Source 89

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