Fertility treatment affects IQ in kids

Children conceived using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) have lower intelligence quotient (IQ) scores than children conceived naturally or with in vitro fertilisation (IVF). ICSI is typically used for men who have low numbers of sperm in their semen or who have poor quality sperms. However, it can also be used in cases in, which the mother's eggs are difficult for the sperm to penetrate. In this procedure, a needle is placed into the testicle, under anaesthesia, to remove sperms. In a laboratory, a single sperm is isolated and then directly injected into an egg removed from the prospective mother. If fertilisation is successful, the embryo that develops a few days later is transferred into the mother. In IVF, the sperms and eggs are fused (fertilised) outside the womb in special tubes. Once there is successful fertilisation, these embryos (earliest from the baby) are put into the mother's uterus. This procedure is known as Embryo Transfer or ET. Researchers from Netherlands compared the IQ at age 5 to 8 years of 83 children conceived by ICSI with that of 83 children conceived by IVF and 85 conceived naturally, to investigate the cognitive development of children conceived by ICSI technique. It was found that the average IQ in the ICSI group was 103, 107 in IVF group and 110 in the naturally conceived group. The difference of four points between ICSI children and IVF was not considered significant, as it could have occurred by chance. However, the difference of 7 points between naturally conceived children and ICSI children was statistically significant. It was concluded that cognitive development among ICSI children was lower than between IVF and naturally conceived children.

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