High doses of drugs used to stimulate the ovaries of older women undergoing fertility treatment may result in failed pregnancies and babies with conditions such as Down’s syndrome.
High
doses of drugs used to stimulate the ovaries of older women undergoing fertility
treatment may result in failed pregnancies and babies with conditions such as
Down’s syndrome. Research by a UK team, presented at the annual European Society of Human Reproduction and
Embryology (ESHRE) conference in Stockholm, suggests that eggs produced after
fertility treatment have more chromosomal abnormalities than would be expected
in untreated women of the same age group.

“What this paper shows is that a lot of the
chromosomal abnormalities are not those that are conventionally age-related,”
said Stuart Lavery, of the IVF clinic at Hammersmith hospital in London. It
raises concerns, he said, that the treatment itself might be responsible for
the abnormalities – possibly by allowing eggs to develop “that nature would
have excluded”. If a pregnancy went to term, these could lead to the birth of a
baby with Down’s syndrome. ~ Guardian, Jul 4

High doses of IVF drugs could cause Down Syndrome
Jared Yee
Down syndrome
fertility
IVF