Follow-up of a cohort of 422 children aged 6 to 13 years conceived by in vitro fertilization

Objective: To contact the total cohort of children conceived by IVF-ET consecutively in our center between June 1981 and December 1988. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: Infertility unit of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Antoine Beclere Hospital, Clamart, France. Patient(s): Complete information was obtained on 370 children. The percentage lost for follow-up was 9%. Intervention(s): To assess the children's well-being, telephone interviews of the parents and questionnaires sent to the parents and/or pediatrician were used. Main Outcome Measure(s): Surgical procedures, malformation, height and weight, school performance. Result(s): The physical growth of these children showed no major pathological features, with only 2.2% of them being below 2 SD for weight and 0.3% for height. The rates of malformation were not significantly different between these children and the general population. School performance was good, with 92.2% presenting encouraging outcome. Fifty-eight percent of the parents of children aged 6 to 10 years old did not inform their children about the IVF nor did 34% of the parents of children aged II to 13. Subsequent to the birth of the NF child, 30 patients (8.9%) had a spontaneous pregnancy. However, five of them (15.1%) were ectopic. Conclusion(s): This study reports, for the first time, reassuring data on the long-term assessment of a large group of older IVF-ET children conceived consecutively, with a low percentage of subjects lost for follow-up.