A new study found correlations between babies conceived using intracytoplasmic injection (ICSI), a male fertility treatment, and developmental disorders. Judith Shulevitz pores over the research:
“Our study shows that treatments developed to manage male infertility are associated with an increased risk for developmental disorders in the offspring,” said one of the authors of the study, Avi Reichenberg of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and King’s College in London. An Australian study published last year also tied ICSI to autism and neurodevelopmental delay. Why would ICSI transmogrify the architecture of the fetal brain if IVF alone doesn’t? One obvious possibility is that injecting spermatozoa into the ovum lets the defective ones bypass a test that evolution devised for them: being able to break down the outer membrane of the egg so as to fertilize it. (Weak or misshapen sperm can’t do that.) Another possibility is that men who use ICSI are likely to have problematic sperm to begin with, so the problem is not with the procedure, it’s with the men who use it.
Alexandra Sifferlin chats with Sven Sandin, the lead author of the study:
Sandin says despite the slightly increased relative risk he and his team found when comparing IVF and naturally conceived children, the absolute risk of problems with IVF remain small. And most of the added problems appeared to be associated with certain infertility procedures. “The risk should however be considered, together with the clinician, to be treatment-specific,” he says.
The Dish 