Conference Coverage
Children’s psychiatric disorders linked with moms’ infertility
Key clinical point: Women with fertility problems who became pregnant through assisted technology had a significantly increased rate of children...
MUNICH – Children born to mothers who required fertility treatment had a significantly higher rate of psychiatric disorders, compared with children born to mothers without fertility problems, based on population-wide registry data collected in Denmark.
Although psychiatric disorders occurred a third more often in children born to mothers treated at fertility clinics, this "modest" increase should not deter women with fertility problems from seeking treatment and becoming pregnant, Allan Jensen, Ph.D., said in a video interview at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
The increased risk of psychiatric disorders probably springs from the underlying infertility of these women and damaged genes that they may carry, rather than because of any fertility treatments they received, said Dr. Jensen, a senior researcher at the Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen.
Dr. Jensen said that he had no disclosures.
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