BACKGROUND The use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is now well established in many countries and the first generations of offspring are reaching maturity. We reviewed the published literature to describe the available evidence about health outcomes in ART-conceived young people who were of an adolescent age or older. METHODS The EMBASE, Medline and PsychINFO databases were searched ...

BACKGROUND The current study is based on the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), which was designed to document the development of the first generation of lesbian families with children conceived through donor insemination. Data were collected in five waves, first at insemination or during pregnancy, and subsequently when the index children were 2, 5, 10 and 17 years old. The...

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have brought the miracle of childbirth to literally hundreds of thousands of adults who would otherwise not have conceived children; indeed, it is now estimated that 1% to 3% of all births in many developed nations involve ARTs.1 The first ART birth, however, was not until 1978, and so even the oldest such offspring are only now entering young adult lif...

STUDY QUESTION How does the frequency of trinucleotide repeat dynamic mutations in offspring conceived through assisted reproductive technology (ART) compare with the frequency of these mutations in control offspring conceived from spontaneous pregnancies? SUMMARY ANSWER There is a slight increase in dynamic mutation instability in offspring conceived through ART compared with the naturally c...

Background: Over 8 million individuals worldwide have been conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART). There is conflicting evidence on the cardiovascular health of ART offspring. This study aimed to investigate vascular function in a cohort children, adolescents and young adults compared spontaneously peers.

BACKGROUND This study examined the motivations and experiences of anonymous donors who decide to make themselves open to contact with their donor offspring. METHODS Online questionnaires were completed by 63 sperm donors and 11 oocyte donors recruited via the Donor Sibling Registry (http://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/), a US-based international registry that facilitates contact between donor...

Over 15 million babies have been conceived by IVF, yet debate about its safety to offspring continues. We hypothesized that superovulation and in vitro fertilization (IVF) promote genomic changes, including altered telomere length (TL) activation of the retrotransposon LINE-1 (L1), tested this hypothesis a mouse model.

BACKGROUND Use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) continues to increase, yet little is known of the longer term health of ART conceived offspring. There are some adverse birth outcomes associated with ART conception but the subsequent developmental trajectory is unclear. Undertaking research in this area is challenging due the sensitive nature of the topic and the time elapsed since bi...

Rarely have donor conceived offspring been studied. Recently, it has become more common for parents to disclose the nature of conception to their offspring. This new development raises questions about the donor's place in the offspring's life and identity. Using surveys collected by the Donor Sibling Registry, the largest U.S. web-based registry, during a 15 week period from October 2009 to Jan...

There is growing evidence that advanced maternal age is a risk factor for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders in offspring. However, it remains unclear whether the altered brain programming induced by advanced maternal age is mediated by pre- or postnatal factors. Here, a mouse model was used to investigate whether pregnancy at advanced age may provoke behavioral and brain gene expressi...