Cerebral palsy and assisted reproductive technologies: a case-control study

Area of Science:

• Reproductive Medicine
• Developmental Neurology
• Public Health

Background:

• Cerebral palsy (CP) is a complex developmental disorder affecting movement.
• Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) involve medical procedures to achieve conception.
• Previous studies have explored potential links between ART and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if singleton births conceived via ART have a higher likelihood of developing cerebral palsy (CP).
• To compare conception methods in singletons with CP versus those without CP.

Main Methods:

• A case-control study using data from the Victorian Cerebral Palsy Register and Victorian Perinatal Data Collection Unit.
• Matching singletons with CP (born 1991-2004) by birth year to controls without CP.
• Linking conception data to ART center records and using conditional logistic regression for analysis, adjusted for covariates.

Main Results:

• 1241 singletons with CP and 2482 controls were analyzed.
• 1.3% of children with CP and 1.0% of controls were conceived using ART.
• No statistically significant increased odds of CP were found for children conceived via ART (aOR 1.19, 95% CI 0.63-2.24).

Conclusions:

• Singleton conception using ART is not strongly associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy.
• The findings suggest that ART is unlikely to be a major contributing factor to the incidence of CP in singletons.