IVF babies grow up to be heavier

• Autores: Jessica Hamzelou
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3137, 2017, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Heleen Zandstra of Maastricht Medical Centre, the Netherlands, and her team have been comparing the effects of using two different culture media to support the growth of early IVF embryos. Earlier they had found that one of these was associated with babies that were 112 grams lighter at birth than those beginning life in the other medium. Now the team have followed up on these babies at the age of 9, recording the height, weight and fat mass of 136 children, as well as blood pressure and heart rate. They were surprised to find that, while children conceived using each type of culture medium were around the same height, the BMI of the group that had been lighter at birth was an average of 0.9 lower than those who had been heavier babies. However, both groups were heavier than average 9-year-olds living in similar circumstances, and had more abdominal fat. Given that heavier children are more likely to become obese later in life, the results are worrying, says Zandstra, who presented her findings at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Switzerland in July