The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed the present scenario of the infertility issues and reported that in near future one in eight couples will face difficulty to conceive naturally and carry the pregnancy for the whole gestational period.
To solve these issues, the application of ART is increasing day by day.
According to the available latest ART data, CDC ART National Summary Report was published in 2016, which showed almost 263,577 ART cycles were completed in that year.
This report also showcases that globally eight million babies created through IVF had reduced in 2015.
This may be due to parents having psychological stress regarding the developmental issues of the children born through ART.
It is always fear in mind for the parents who opt for fertility treatment usually have uncertainty about the development of the child.
They usually have a fear in their mind that fertility treatment prescribed during the IVF, IUI could impact childhood development.
The existed mixed evidence research report did not conclude a definite result concerning developmental milestones.
Some of the research evidence showed that the risk of premature delivery, low birth weight were higher in ART and that could cause a developmental delay.
But some study findings also suggested that ART does not hurt the physical and mental development of children in comparison with natural conception.
Fertility researchers from Fertility Centers of Illinois jointly worked with Rush University Medical Center to solve this psychological stress by conducting a survey-based study to compare the developmental milestones between naturally born children and birth through assisted reproductive technology (ART).
This is the first study, which analyzed childhood development from the perspective of the parent.
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The researchers of this study admitted that it is important to analyze the developmental milestone by considering the parent’s perspective, as most of the parents spend maximum time with their children at an early age.
Therefore, parents can do behavioral analysis than anyone else.
The researcher of this study also disclosed that pant infertile couples do not want to pursue fertility treatment as they have a fear that children born through ART do not have normal development due to the interaction of fertility treatment with child growth.
Researchers assessed the result by developing an app, named Ovia Parenting.
In this study, the study participants were assessed from birth to five years old for determining developmental differences.
CDC guidelines were followed to set the features in the app for assessing developmental milestones.
This study findings help laymen to know the fact more conveniently and subside their fear.
The study participants were US-based. 1,881 study participants completed this survey.
Among, them 12.2% (229) of children were born through ART, whereas 87.8% (1,652) of children were born through natural conception.
Read Also: Ectopic pregnancy
Among the children who have been born through ART used different treatment modalities, like infertility medication for 91 cases, intrauterine insemination for 89 cases, IVF for 78 cases, and more than one method had been used for 28 cases.
The observation of this study showed there is no difference between developmental milestone timelines.
But a significant difference existed at 12 months for those conceived through ART were more likely to report their child met all milestones than spontaneously conceived children’s parents.
Ravi Sharma is a self-motivated, successful entrepreneur and has a solid experience in the fertility segment. and he is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). He is a pharmacy graduate with post-graduation in business administration and has 14 years of rich experience in the field of infertility segment. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate (B. Pharm) and M.B.A (marketing).
His most recent success includes the successful launch of the medical tourism company, ARTbaby, which offers treatment options for infertility, egg donation, and surrogacy. He likes spending time with his family and writing about various aspects of IVF surrogacy and donating eggs.