Newborns Maturity After Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Abstract

Sally A. Asker*, M.Sc., Faten H. Abdelazeim, Ph.D., Naglaa A. Zaky and Ph.D. and Alaa Wageh MD

There are serious emotional, financial, demographic, as well as medical impacts associated with infertility. Over 80 million people all over the world are affected by it. It is believed that between 10% and 15% of all couples in their reproductive years experience by reproductive problems. Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) were first developed nearly four decades ago to aid in reducing the burden if infertility in affected couples. Today, ART is accountable for greater than 4 percent of all live births. While most of ART-born infants are healthy, concerns about the health of ART-born infants have emerged recently. There is an elevated risk of perinatal negative outcome in newborns conceived by ART. This study was aimed to detect difference in maturity of newborns conceived from fresh as well as frozen embryo transfer in comparison with those from naturally conceived. 186 full term newborns whom mothers age ranged from 25 to 35 years old with their BMI ranged from 18.5 to 29 and they were born through in vitro fertilization/ intra cytoplasmic injection (IVF/ICSI) (frozen embryo transfer (vitrification process) and fresh embryo transfer) following 37 weeks of gestation were enrolled in this study. Newborns conceived without fertility treatments (natural conception) served as a reference group. Newborns were equally distributed into three groups: Group A: 62 Naturally conceived newborns, Group B: 62 Newborns conceived from fresh embryo transfer and Group C: 62 Newborns conceived from frozen embryo transfer through vitrification process. Newborns in the three groups were assessed for maturity by New Ballard Score that was corresponded to estimated gestational age in weeks. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the maturity of newborns born by normal conception, fresh embryo transfer, as well as frozen embryo transfer. For multiple comparisons following a significant ANOVA test, the Tukey honestly significant difference (Tukey- HSD) test was employed, and for multiple comparisons following a significant Kruskal-Wallis test, the Bonferroni post hoc test was utilized. Statistical significance was assumed at the p<0.05. When comparing the three groups, it was found that the estimated gestational age significantly lowest in group B (fresh embryo transfer) in comparison with both group C (frozen embryo transfer) as well as group A (normal conception) and it was significantly lower in group A (normal conception) compared to group C (frozen embryo transfer). There was difference in maturity has been detected in newborns conceived from fresh as well as frozen embryo transfer in comparison with naturally conceived.