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Children Born From Lab Eggs Healthy By EMMA ROSS www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-fertility-kids,0,1131877.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines AP Medical Writer June 30, 2003, 2:39 PM EDT MADRID, Spain -- Children born after their mother's eggs were matured in a laboratory dish appear to be healthy, according to the first survey of babies born using the technique. The method, which has been used to create about 250 babies worldwide, is designed to allow normally fertile women whose partners have sperm problems to avoid taking high levels of risky hormone injections before their eggs are retrieved. Danish researchers told scientists at a European fertility conference Monday that a study of 33 babies born using the technique, known as in vitro maturation, indicates they are normal, at least up to the age of "This is still a small study and more children have to be born before we reach any definitive conclusion. However, these results indicate that the IVM method seems to be safe," said the study's leader, Dr. Anne Lis Mikkelsen, a consultant at Herlev University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. The technique involves removing immature eggs from the woman's ovaries and maturing them in hormones and the mother's blood in a laboratory dish for 28 to 36 hours. The eggs are then fertilized by direct sperm injection and the resulting embryos are implanted in the womb. In addition to women who are fertile, the technique is also used for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, who are at increased risk of a potentially fatal reaction to hormone injections given before egg retrieval. Hormone injections are given to increase the number of eggs that mature in a single menstrual cycle. Without them, normally one egg matures and the rest die. Taking the eggs out before they mature means smaller amounts of hormones can be given for a shorter period, or hormone injections can be avoided entirely. About four eggs can be retrieved this way. The chance of pregnancy from transferring one or two embryos is 18 to 25 percent, slightly lower than for conventional IVF treatment. Long applied in animals, in vitro maturation was first used on humans in South Korea in 1992. It remains a highly specialized field and only a few clinics worldwide offer the service. There was a fear that problems such as oversized fetuses might arise, as happened in cattle, said Dr. Johan Smitz, a hormone specialist at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. Those concerns mean it is essential to monitor babies born using the method "to see that there is really no problem of safety," said Smitz, who was not connected with the study. "The results here are very encouraging, but other types of studies also need to be conducted." However, Roger Gosden, an ovary expert from the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va., warned genetic problems may not show up in such a small study. "Because the incidence of those sorts of syndromes is so rare -- one in 15,000 -- you need a large series, so studying a few thousand IVM babies is not going to answer the question," Gosden said. The study involved 33 babies born between July 1998 and January 2000 by in vitro maturation at Mikkelsen's hospital. One girl was born dead, but her death was thought to be related to the failure of the placenta to operate properly rather than the method of conception. Another girl was born with a soft palate, a common birth defect also not thought to be related to the method. Birth weights and the rate and type of pregnancy complications and birth defects were normal, Mikkelsen said. The first 18 children were also examined when they were six months, 1 and 2 years old and their parents were questioned about how their children were performing on developmental milestones. "We found that the development was as we could expect. In about six or seven of the children the language skills were more developed than we would expect, but I think that's due to the parents" and their exceptional motivation, Mikkelsen said. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press All logos and trademarks in this site are property of
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