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A large Australian study followed children born of natural conception and others born through in vitro fertilization. Objective: to evaluate their performance on the neurodevelopmental level of children, according to their mode of conception. The results are reassuring.
Developed in the early 1980s, in vitro fertilization is a technique that has made it possible to give birth to eight million children throughout the world. Australian scientists have looked into the possible differences between these children and those conceived naturally, based on their developmental and educational results in primary school.
More than 400,000 children included in the study
The study included 412,713 children born between 2005 and 2013, including 11,059 who were conceived by IVF, any method combined. Objective: to study the development of children and their academic performance, using demographic data from the State of Victoria. Children’s educational and developmental outcomes were assessed using 2 Australian national standardized assessments:
- The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC);
- The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)
Scientists at the University of Melbourne therefore examined the results of these children, to draw conclusions according to the way in which they were conceived.
NO to diets, YES to WW!
No academic difference
The authors’ results, published in Plos Medicineindicate that there is no difference between the two groups of children.
“In this analysis, under the given causal assumptions, school-age developmental and educational outcomes for children conceived through IVF are equivalent to those of children conceived spontaneously” they note.
For lead author Dr. Amber Kennedy, “some worrying evidence has already suggested that children conceived through IVF may have poorer school-age outcomes compared to their spontaneously conceived peers. However, our comprehensive analysis of this massive dataset revealed that this was not the case. Our results will reassure current and future clinicians and parents of children conceived through IVF“she concludes.