Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Nov;168(4):332-341.
doi: 10.5507/bp.2023.039. Epub 2023 Oct 3.

The association between preterm births and assisted reproductive technologies

Anna Stastna  1 , Eva Waldaufova  1 , Tomas Fait  1   2   3
Affiliations
Free article

The association between preterm births and assisted reproductive technologies

Anna Stastna et al. Biomed Pap Med Fac Univ Palacky Olomouc Czech Repub. 2024 Nov.
Free article

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this study is to determine whether the risk of preterm births differs according to the conception method: with or without ART and according to the ART method used (in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) with fresh embryo transfer, frozen embryo transfer (FET) and oocyte receipt (OoR)).

Methods: The research is based on individualised anonymised data on deliveries in Czechia in 2013-2018 (n=651,049) obtained from the National Health Information System. We employ the survival analysis approach applying survival functions (Life tables method) and Cox regression to model the risk of preterm births according to the conception method when controlling for a set of covariates.

Results: The results revealed that the risk of preterm births in singleton pregnancies is higher for ART-treated women (1.56 to 2.06 depending on the ART method) than for non-ART-treated women. The proportion of preterm births differs according to the ART method; the highest proportion was observed for OoR mothers.

Conclusions: Overall, the differences between ART-treated mothers according to the conception method are due mainly to the structural differences between mothers. When controlling for the covariates (Cox regression model), no significant differences were observed concerning the risk of preterm births for women who underwent fresh IVF, FET and OoR.

Keywords: assisted reproduction technology; frozen embryo transfer; in-vitro fertilisation; oocyte donation; preterm birth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

References

    1. Adamson GD, De Mouzon J, Chambers, Zegers-Hochschild F, Mansour R, Ishihara O, Banker M, Dyer S. International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technology: World Report on Assisted Reproductive Technology, 2015 (preliminary) [online]. Available from: https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.206/3nz.654.myftpupload.com/wp-co....
    1. Lv H, Diao F, Du J, Chen T, Meng Q, Ling X, Li H, Song C, Xi Q, Jiang Y, Xu Y, Tao S, Huang L, Wen M, Peng M, Liu C, Lu Q, He Y, Yin Y, Liu X, Xu B, Han X, Zhou K, Jiang T, Zhao Y, Ma H, G Jin, Xia Y, Liu J, Lin Y, Hu Z, Shen H. Assisted reproductive technology and birth defects in a Chinese birth cohort study. Lancet Reg Health West Pac 2021;7:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2020.100090 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Kocourková J, Šťastná, A, Burcin B. The influence of the increasing use of assisted reproduction technologies on the recent growth in fertility in Czechia. Sci Rep 2023;13(1):10854. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-37071-7 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Goisis A, Håberg SE, Hanevik HI, Magnus MCh, Kravdal Ø. The demographics of assisted reproductive technology births in a Nordic country. Hum Reprod 2020;35(6):1441-50. doi: 10.1093/humrep/deaa055 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Barbuscia A, Myrskylä M, Goisis A. The psychosocial health of children born after medically assisted reproduction: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. SSM Popul Health 2019;7:100355. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100355 - PubMed - DOI

LinkOut - more resources