IVF Children

[jac]

I've just read on teletext that the "HFEA are launching a study of health problems faced by children conceived by IVF. Long term follow-up health checks on 68k children born through IVF are being set up to assess any risks"

My 5 year old's health has not been too bad but she does seems to be vulnerable to minor illnesses. Also at the age of 2.5 she had pneumonia. Dh and I have always thought that because she was an IVF baby that she has been more at risk of illnesses.

What does anyone else think?
Thanks

Robert Winston was going on about this on Woman's Hour yesterday - because of the frozen egg baby story. He thinks there's a higher risk of genetic abnormalities in those babies - and also has reservations re: ivf for similar reasons. the only study I've seen which hinted at any problems was with ICSI babies..it was a small study, and another one contradicted it. I suppose nothing is risk-free, and at least if the study goes ahead people will go in with their eyes open. as an older mother I know there's a higher risk with my pregnancies too. Jac - a lot of children get zillions of minor illnesses, my daughter included, so I wouldn't worry too much about that being related to how your child was conceived.

I read those articles this morning and did think 'oh here we go again'. If you believe all the health related stories/studies in the paper you'd never do or eat anything ever again - and 90% of them contradict each other a couple of years later. When you read the evidence on this one it does seem to be incredibly scant - it' really seems to be more a case of ''we haven't done enough research into this so we ought to IN CASE ther are any problems'' rather than being based on any current evidence that ther ARE problems

bayleaf, IKWYM - but sometimes the science gets ahead of itself and retrospective studies (68k is pretty big) do help to weigh up the risks. I don't know if you ever received one of those round-robin emails re: antiperspirants causing cancer...well, scientists decided to look at this 'urban myth' simply because it became so widespread, and have found no link. so sometimes it works the other way and can reassure (research is from Seattle, published in the American Journal of the National Cancer Institute)

Thanks you two for your comments.

I don't mind surveys and stats etc, but would rather they give you the facts and figures etc and let you come up with your own conclusions.

My only concern about IVF is that it is still very young at 24 and has plenty of time to show up something.

Jac, being a parent is a worrying enough 'job' as it is, without scary stories...so I hope parents like you can relax a bit and enjoy their children

Jac, being a parent is a worrying enough 'job' as it is, without scary stories...so I hope parents like you can relax a bit and enjoy their children

Yes Bundle, you're right. I don't really let these things bother me it's only a niggle in the back of my mind that only surfaces when I read things like today. So no worries, I am a normal worrying mum!

jac
ds (10 months) is an IVF babe too

I am all for follow up studies, I think we owe it to the kids - if you don't look, you won't find, and really we have no idea whether there are long term implications - its all one great big experiment.
From my rapid reading of the papers this morning, I understand that the areas there are most concerns about (although no evidence, since it hasn't been looked for) - are ICSI, since no-one knows whether forcing dodgy sperm into eggs might cause problems, particularly for the fertility of the kids involved; and anything using freezing, especially of embryos. Probably less concern about straight IVF as there is less that is being interfered with. I would think it unlikely that vulnerability to minor illnesses would be related to IVF.

That said, I am not worried about ds - he's a very normal lively little boy. Just a bit extra special to us

Bundle - I'm not sure I expressed myself very clearly - I DO think it's good that they are investigating - I just don't think we should worry just because they are investigating - wait till/if they find something to worry about!
Lets face it we worry that it's our fault if we haven't breast fed and if they come down with lots of illnesses etc - and if we've sent them to nursery ( catch lots of germs) and if we HAVEN'T sent them to nursery ( no germs so no immunity...) we were baasically put on this earth as mothers to find something to castigate ourselves for and ivf mums have been through enough stress without adding more - and quite possibly unnecessary -stress in worrying before anything has been proved!

elliott, congrats on your 10 month old.

I shall be happy to take part in any follow ups. Do you think they want to test everyone? Or just the ones who did ICSI/frozen embryo? I did neither, I was lucky at my first attempt.