博元婦產科不孕

博元婦產科不孕 Uterine health more important for infant outcome than egg quality

MedWire News: The birthweight (BW) and gestational age (GA) of babies born via IVF is affected more by uterine health than oocyte quality, study results suggest.

Using data for 60,037 standard IVF cycles (patient oocyte, patient uterus), 10,176 donor oocyte and patient uterus (DE) cycles, and 1,180 gestational carrier cycles (GC; patient oocyte, donor uterus), William Gibbons (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Texas, USA) and colleagues found statistically greater mean BWs for IVF babies compared with DE babies at 3,265 g versus 3,236 g, but statistically lower BWs compared with GC babies, at 3,309 g.

The differences in mean GA among the babies was also statistically significant (IVF = 37.7, DE = 37.4, GC = 37.2 weeks, respectively.)

To account for the fact that DE and GC cycles involve embryo implantation into an "unstimulated uterus", the researchers compared fresh and frozen traditional IVF cycles, where the latter also involves an unstimulated uterus.

Frozen embryo IVF BWs most closely resembled GC BWs in this scenario, at 3,377 g compared with 3,309 g, respectively, while fresh IVF BWs were just 3,240 g.

"This is the first time that a study demonstrated that the health of a woman's uterus is a key determinant for a fetus to obtain normal birth weight and normal length of gestation," said Gibbons.

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a trading division of Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd