Having second thoughts about doing IVF after i've just found out this information

[Hdaniels11]

I've been in the infertility world for about 3 years and have been thinking about IVF for a while. I've been looking into it and google and everywhere i look it says IVF babies have a 50% increased risk of heart defects. WHAT? Is that true? do he literally never heard anything about that until now.
50% is massive!

I also learnt that Babies born from IVF have a much higher risk of any type of childhood cancer, as well as hepatic tumours compared with children born from natural conception.
I know ANY child or person can inevitably get cancer at any time but seeing all this stuff about their being a higher risk is scaring me.

I would love some insight into how accurate this is?
Has anyone got children made from IVF with these issues?
Aibu to be worried

The comment was in essence wondering whether, if there is a slightly elevated risk among IVF patients, it might have any correlation to the kind of conditions that could be causing people to have IVF that could explain it. And if so, that might be useful information for people who, like OP, are worried.It was certainly not a promotion of eugenics (!) and it really never occurred to me that anyone might read it that way.

Horrible thread.

I am aware of 3 IVF conceived children from 2 different families -twins of 5 and a boy of 10. All are healthy physically and no neurodiversities are known. Older child recently passed his 11+ for grammar school.

I am currently pregnant with twins and physically they appear to be doing well so far. I’m getting scanned every 4 weeks and the scans are very detailed

IVF is tough and quite invasive. It’s a slog and very draining physically, financially and psychologically. Success rates aren’t great and it’s still quite crude in many ways

I agree.

Everything in life comes with a risk. My IVF 'baby' is at uni and perfectly health. I remember reading that I increased my risk of certain cancers due to the drugs but the last 20 years was definitely worth the risk involved.

Anecdata: 2 children conceived via icsi.
Both ASD & SEN. But its 'in the family'
Recently asked GP & Oncology about elevated cancer risk for Mother but they were very dismissive.
There are so many risks in life. It's impossible to avoid them all.

@Porkandbeans1 have you considered donor embryos, cost is low approx €1600 and success rates over 50% your age isn't a factor.

The progesterone is needed because the ivf process suppresses your natural progesterone. I’m not aware of any evidence that the supplemented progesterone can allow implantation of an embryo that would not be able to implant in a natural cycle.
They select the embryos to transfer based on “quality” which is based on likelihood to implant. There doesn’t seem to be a link with health of the baby if the pregnancy goes to term. https://www.urh.es/en/embryo-quality-andembryo-quality-babys-health/

storywriter I know of 3 women who had fertility treatment who have all died of ovarian cancer, not all IVF, two had treatment before IVF was discovered, all three died before age 50, one was only 36.

In its infancy? It’s been going for 45 years and there are millions of people all over the world who were conceived by ivf. Did he say what he thinks the risks are? He should stick to his specialism and let the fertility specialists inform people about the pros and cons of fertility treatment.

@FictionalCharacter should have said this was about 16 years ago. But yes I was very surprised by his reaction. He did say that we need to see how second generations of IVF babies will fare before deeming it safe.

My son who was conceived by ivf has autism but he has 3 naturally conceived cousins who have autism so the link is genetic not to do with ivf.

It is the increased risk of multiples that increase the risk of sen. Single embryo transfer is most commonly done now.

I have also looked into the data as I have a distant relative who has IVF triplets and one currently has cancer. My relative also had breast cancer after having IVF. I concluded that there were multiple factors involved, not just the IVF. She would have been classified as an older mum when she was pregnant; the triplets were born premature and were of a very low birth weight; I think they were from frozen embryo transfer as well.

In terms of the breast cancer I read that it was likely to have been there before IVF and the IVF brought it to the fore.

It has been an awful journey and it would be very easy to blame the IVF entirely for everything. As others have said though, the stats show there is only a small increased risk; I know a number of other children who were born through IVF who are very healthy and their mums have not had breast cancer.

User963, aye you do, I had progesterone pessaries from day of transfer up until I was 14 weeks.

@User963 yes, it helps a healthy embryo implant. But an abnormal embryo will still likely perish before that point.

I know that sounds harsh, but as with previously disputed comments, it's just a scientific fact....

*its true that progesterone helps a healthy embryo to implant