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Nov. 17, 2008 -- The CDC reports that certain birth defects -- including heart wall problems and cleft lip/palate -- may be two to four times more common among babies conceived with assisted reproductive technology (ART) than babies conceived naturally.
Those findings -- published in the advance online edition of Human Reproduction -- focus on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
ART is becoming more common, but the CDC isn't making any recommendations about its use.
"Today, more than 1% of infants are conceived through ART and this number may continue to increase," CDC epidemiologist Jennita Reefhuis, PhD, says in a news release.
The chances of birth defects in a baby conceived through ART are "low," notes Reefhuis.
But she says "it is still important for parents who are considering using ART to think about all of the potential risks and benefits of this technology."
Reefhuis and colleagues reviewed data from mothers of about 13,500 babies born with birth defects and mothers of more than 5,000 babies without birth defects.
Those babies were born from October 1997-December 2003 in 10 states (Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Utah, and Texas).
About 1% of the babies without birth defects were conceived through ART, compared to 2.4% of the babies with birth defects, according to interviews with the mothers.
The following types of birth defects were more common among babies conceived through ART:
Those findings, which take into account other risk factors, only applied to single births, not to twins, triplets, or other multiple births.
But the CDC points out that multiple births are associated with ART and with birth defects.
"Thus, ART might contribute to the risk of major birth defects both directly by increasing the risk of defects among singletons, and indirectly by increasing the occurrence of twinning which is a strong risk factor for many types of major birth defects," the study states.
The study doesn't prove that ART was to blame for the birth defects.
"Subfertile women might have a higher risk of having a child with a birth defect regardless of whether infertility treatments are used," write Reefhuis and colleagues.
The CDC also notes that birth defects are rare and that the findings in the new study need to be checked.