Singleton Pregnancy May Reduce Risk of Autism in IVF Babies

In vitro fertilization, or IVF, has become a fairly common procedure in the three and a half decades since Louise Brown, the world's first so-called "test tube baby" was born. Chances are good that you know at least one of the more than five million individuals conceived via IVF. If you've ever spent time with my own family, you know two. My twins, conceived with the help of IVF, were born eleven years ago after many years of hoping and trying.

I am thankful for all three of my children, and grateful that they are relatively healthy and happy kids. Still, I cringe just a bit whenever I see headlines that appear to link in vitro fertilization with possible health problems or other issues. I couldn't help but feel nervous when I saw the headline in July, "Rare In-Vitro Technique Raises Autism Risk, Study Says."

No increased risk with conventional IVF

First, the good news: Overall, there was no increased risk of autism noted for babies who were conceived using conventional in vitro fertilization as compared with babies conceived naturally. And even those who were conceived using a certain technique were still at low risk.

ICSI and an increase in autism risk
The rare technique the article above mentioned was the ICSI, or intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection procedure. I'm familiar with this procedure, as our reproductive endocrinologist performed the ICSI technique to fertilize my eggs. This technique is used when the chances of sperm successfully penetrating the membrane of an egg are low. A single sperm is drawn into a needle and injected directly into each egg that is to be fertilized.

Unfortunately, as noted in the Swedish study, babies conceived from the ICSI procedure had more than four times the risk of autism and more than two times the risk of mental retardation as babies conceived from conventional IVF. Although the risk was still small, the difference was significant.

Singleton babies at lower risk

As simple as it may seem, a solution may have been discovered within the data from the same study. Singletons born from the ICSI procedure did not have a significantly higher risk of autism than babies conceived from conventional IVF or babies conceived naturally.

Over the past several years, doctors have leaned more and more toward singleton pregnancies for in vitro fertilization patients. Single embryo transfers are preferred over twin or triplet transfers by many specialists, although patients may opt to transfer two or three embryos to increase their chances of successful implantation and to avoid the cost of repeated trials.

Knowing that singleton pregnancies may result in a lower risk of autism than twin or triplet pregnancies, doctors may encourage couples who undergo in vitro fertilization with the ICSI procedure to opt for single embryo transfers.

As a mother of bright and beautiful twins conceived through the ICSI procedure, I couldn't say what choice I would have made had this information been available when I was trying to conceive. It is just one factor to consider, among many, when deciding how to proceed along the sometimes complicated journey to parenthood.