Assisted Reproductive Technology: No Greater Risk of Maternal Hospitalization Postpartum.

Women who receive assisted reproductive technology (ART) in conceiving children have no higher risk of postpartum hospitalization when compared with sub-fertile women who did not receive ART or with fertile women, according to an article co-authored by School of Public Health researchers.

In a research letter in the journal Epidemiology, Eugene Declercq, professor of community health sciences, and co-authors say their study using Massachusetts data from reproductive clinics and hospitals showed that mothers who used in vitro fertilization or other ART methods were at no higher risk of re-hospitalization than sub-fertile or fertile mothers in the six weeks to one year after giving birth. In the first six weeks postpartum, rates of hospitalization for ART mothers were slightly higher, but the difference was due largely to higher rates of twins and cesarean births.

“These findings suggest that mothers with deliveries after assisted reproductive technology are generally at no greater risk of postpartum hospitalization in singleton births than mothers with indicators of subfertility who did nor receive (ART) or mothers with neither (ART) nor an indicator of subfertility,” the research team wrote. “After twin births, re-hospitalizations for mothers conceiving with (ART) were comparable with or less likely than those to mothers in the fertile group.”

SPH researchers have been working with faculty from Dartmouth, Michigan State University, and others on a wide-ranging study of whether assisted reproductive technology affects health outcomes of mothers and children. The Massachusetts Outcomes Study of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (MOSART) links clinical data from all Massachusetts ART clinics to population-based vital statistics and hospital data.

Infertility affects an estimated 12 to 15 percent of women of reproductive age. The use of in vitro fertilization and other fertility-enhancing treatments has risen steadily in the US, with an estimated 1.6 percent of births (65,000) now involving ART.

Other SPH co-authors were: Howard Cabral, Candice Belanoff, and Daksha Gopal. Barbara Luke of Michigan State and Judy Stern of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth also contributed.

—Lisa Chedekel