Neonatal outcomes of 325 neonates conceived with use of assisted reproductive technology / 中华围产医学杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo compare the neonatal outcomes between infants of assisted conception (AC) and natural conception (NC). Methods A prospective case-control study was conducted.Eligible mothers were invited to this study at 28 weeks of gestation and were followed up to delivery.All newborns were examined by pediatricians right after birth.Data including gestational age,birth weight,admission to neonatal intensive care unit (NICU),and presence of any major malformation were collected.Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 13.0.Difference between two groups was compared by x2 test. ResultsSix hundred and seventy-three newborns were enrolled into this study,including 325 in AC group and 348 in NC group.There were no differences between the demographic characteristics of the two groups,including maternal age,parents' education,family income and proportion of primipara (P＞0.05).The incidences of twins (32.62％ vs 3.45％,x2 =98.88),preterm birth (30.46％ vs 7.76％,x2=56.92),low birth weight infant (32.31％ vs 8.91％,x2 =57.07)and admission to neonatal intensive care unit (27.38％ vs 8.91％,x2 =39.16) and proportion of cesarean birth (62.77％ vs 21.55％,x2=117.64) in AC group were significantly higher than in NC group (all P＜0.01),except for the incidence of birth defect (4.62％ vs 2.59％,x2=2.01,P＞ 0.05).However,no significant differences was found in the above items when only singletons were compared between the two groups (P＞0.05),except for the cesarean section rate (61.18％ vs 22.03％,x2 =100.93,P＜0.01).There were no difference in any of the above neonatal outcomes when different assisted reproductive technologies applied were compared(in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer,intracytoplasmic sperm injection and frozen embryo transfer) (P＞0.05).Conclusions Neonatal outcome after assisted conception is a bit worse than natural conception,which might mainly due to the large proportion of multiple pregnancy after assisted conception.In order to improve neonatal outcome after assisted conception,the number of embryos transferred should be limited.