Reassuring Data Found on ART Outcomes.

Women treated with assisted reproductive technology (ART) were likely to have non-assisted ART pregnancies at rates similar to non-delivery hospitalizations, and were hospitalized for similar reasons, regardless of the outcome of their ART treatment, a study co-authored by a School of Public researcher has found.

“Our study provides reassuring data that hospitalizations for women without an ART delivery were neither significantly more frequent nor for different etiologies than those for women whose ART treatment had been successful,” says the study, published in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics. “Hospitalizations not associated with delivery suggested similarity in morbidity for all ART patients, regardless of success with ART treatment.”

The aim of the study was to evaluate the frequency of hospitalizations before, during, and after ART over a 13-year period among more than 6,000 women residing in Massachusetts. A substantial proportion of the women had both non-ART deliveries and hospitalizations for reasons other than delivery, the study found.

The study showed that women treated with ART had non-ART pregnancies “either by other (fertility treatments) or independent of treatment, regardless of whether their ART treatment ended with a singleton live birth…. In summary, for the groups as defined, there was no difference in the overall non-ART delivery rates, number of non-delivery hospitalizations, or indications for hospital admissions.”

The most frequent diagnoses for hospitalization did not differ significantly among the groups and included uterine fibroids (8 percent), morbid obesity (2.7 percent), tubal or ectopic pregnancy, (2.2 percent), specific malignancies (0.7 percent), depression (4 percent), endometriosis (3 percent), and asthma (3.6 percent).

Daksha Gopal, a senior statistical analyst, was a co-author of the study, which was led by Judy Stern of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

—Lisa Chedekel