From the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Chicago Tribune and elsewhere:

Babies conceived with the help of medical technology are two to four times more likely to have certain types of birth defects than children conceived naturally, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Human Reproduction.

The report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an elevated risk of heart defects, cleft lips and gastrointestinal defects.

Scientists emphasized that the problems were not lethal and that the individual risk of birth defects is small. For example, the risk of a baby in the United States being born with a cleft lip or without a palate is about 1 in 950, but the study found that the risk is 1 in 425 for babies conceived through infertility treatments.

About one percent of all births in the United States now occur with the help of infertility treatments, or double the rate recorded in 1996.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 8:20 am and is filed under assisted reproduction, cleft palate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.