Fertility treatments linked to certain birth defects

As CNN reports, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States has found infants born from in vitro fertilization are two to four times more likely to be born with birth defects than infants conceived naturally. The study's lead author says the risks, overall, are still low. As CNN says:

As part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which gathers information on birth defects from 10 states, Reefhuis and her colleagues compared 281 births using ART with more than 14,000 naturally conceived births. The researchers looked at approximately 18 categories of birth defects, but only those four were found to be "statistically significantly associated with ART."

"ART" is assisted reproductive technology and it includes things like in vitro fertilization and using donor eggs.

The study findings pertain only to single births; the researchers did not find a link between ART and birth defects among multiple births. ART increases the chances of having a multiple birth, and infants born as part of a multiple birth are more likely to have birth defects regardless of the method of conception.

More info here.