Specialists call for IVF changes to lower health risks

Children conceived by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) run significantly greater health risks, which could be almost entirely avoided if fertility clinics adopted a policy of transferring only one embryo into a mother's womb, scientists said yesterday.

Several studies show that multiple births create health problems for babies and their mothers.

In Britain, almost all triplets and about one in five sets of twins are the result of fertility treatment. In 1999, 17 per cent of the 23,254 IVF treatment cycles that year resulted in live newborns and 27 per cent of these were multiple births.

Karl Nygren, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Sofiahemmet Hospital in Stockholm, called for a change in IVF policy so that doctors used only one embryo per treatment cycle. "Evidence is accumulating that a policy leading to multiple births means increased risk of prematurity and, consequently higher mortality, disability and ill-health," Professor Nygren told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Vienna.

"There are also psychosocial problems, more difficult pregnancies, more Caesarean sections, prolonged breast feeding and extra stress, particularly for the mother and especially during the early years of childhood. The economic consequences can be overwhelming as well."

Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) introduced revised guidelines last year, which meant clinics could implant more than two embryos in a woman's womb only in exceptional circumstances.

Professor Nygren said there was a drive from health professionals and couples seeking fertility treatment to maximise the efficiency of the treatment, often interpreted as transferring the maximum number of embryos allowed.

But early results of a study by Dutch scientists indicated that transferring one embryo could be as successful in terms of achieving a pregnancy as transferring two embryos at once. Of the 43 patients studied so far, there was a 27.3 per cent pregnancy rate after the first cycle when one embryo was transferred, compared with a rate of 28.6 per cent among double transfers, with two of these pregnancies being twins.

The HFEA said it would look at the results of the Dutch study to see whether it should change its guidelines.