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Fertility treatment and child intelligence, attention, and executive functions in 5-year-old singletons: a cohort
B Bay1, E L Mortensen, U S Kesmodel
1Section for Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; The Fertility Clinic, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Insights
Fertility treatments and parental subfertility do not impact children's intelligence, attention, or executive functions by age five. This finding holds true even after accounting for various parental and child-related factors, ensuring robust conclusions.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Medicine
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatric Neurodevelopment
Background:
- Parental subfertility and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are increasingly common.
- Concerns exist regarding potential long-term neurodevelopmental effects on offspring.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between fertility treatment, parental subfertility, and cognitive/behavioral outcomes in 5-year-old children.
- To assess intelligence, attention, and executive functions in singletons conceived via fertility treatment or due to parental subfertility.
Main Methods:
- A follow-up study was conducted in Denmark (2003-2008) with 1782 children from the Danish National Birth Cohort.
- Children underwent a neuropsychological assessment at age five, including intelligence, attention, and executive function tests.
- Analyses utilized multiple linear regression, adjusting for numerous covariates like parental education and maternal intelligence.
Main Results:
- Unadjusted analyses showed nonsignificantly lower scores for intelligence and executive functions in children born after fertility treatment or to subfertile parents.
- After adjusting for maternal intelligence and parental education, no significant mean differences were found in intelligence, attention, or executive functions between children conceived via fertility treatment and those conceived spontaneously.
- Similarly, no significant differences were observed between children born after spontaneous conception and those born to subfertile parents (infertility >12 months).
Conclusions:
- Parental subfertility and the use of fertility treatments are not associated with differences in offspring intelligence, attention, or executive functions at age five.
- These findings suggest that assisted reproduction and subfertility do not negatively impact key neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood.
Objective:
To assess the association of fertility treatment and subfertility with offspring intelligence, attention, and executive functions in 5-year-old singletons.
Design:
Follow-up study.
Setting:
Denmark 2003-2008.
Population:
A cohort of 1782 children sampled from the Danish National Birth Cohort.
Methods:
The children were tested with a neuropsychological battery at age five. In addition to tests of intelligence, attention and executive functions, the follow up included extensive information on important covariates. The analyses were conducted using multiple linear regression and adjusted for parental educational level, maternal intelligence, age, parity, body mass index, smoking in pregnancy, alcohol consumption in pregnancy and child gender, child age, and examiner.
Main Outcome Measures:
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised, the Test of Everyday Attention for Children at Five, and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions scores.
Results:
A consistent pattern of nonsignificantly lower scores were only observed for intelligence and executive functions in children born after fertility treatment or by subfertile parents when the results were unadjusted for maternal intelligence and parental educational level. When adjusted for these and other covariates, there were no significant mean differences in intelligence (mean difference -2.8, 95% CI -7.8, 2.2), overall attention (-0.1, 95% CI -0.6, 0.3), or parent-rated executive functions (-0.1, 95% CI -3.0, 2.9) between children born after spontaneous conception and children born to parents conceiving after fertility treatment. Similarly, there were no significant mean differences in intelligence (mean difference 0.6, 95% CI -2.2, 3.4), overall attention (0.1, 95% CI -0.2, 0.4), or parent-rated executive functions (1.0, 95% CI -1.8, 3.7) between children born after spontaneous conception and children born to subfertile parents waiting more than 12 months before conceiving naturally.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that parental subfertility and fertility treatment are unrelated to offspring intelligence, attention and executive functions.
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