P–724 The association between use of assisted reproductive techniques and childhood asthma: a Swedish nationwide register-based cohort study
Authors: Wang C , Johansson A , Almqvist C , Hernández-Díaz S , Öberg S 
Published: August 2021

Study question

Are the previously reported greater risks of childhood asthma in children conceived by assisted reproductive techniques due to the intervention or unmeasured parental confounding?

Summary answer

After accounting for both measured and unmeasured parental factors we found no indication that the use of assisted reproductive techniques increases children’s risk of asthma.

What is known already

Several earlier studies have reported a higher risk of childhood asthma among children conceived by ART. However, only one previous study has attempted a sibling comparison to account for infertility as well as parental background factors, and their findings need to be replicated. Little is thus known on what underlies the higher risk of childhood asthma.

Study design, size, duration

In this nationwide register-based cohort, we identified all 1,671,532 live births between 1997 and 2013 in the Swedish Medical Birth Register (MBR) and followed them to the end of 2018.

Participants/materials, setting, methods

Infertility and ART use were ascertained from IVF clinic reporting, clinical diagnosis, and maternal self-report during the first antenatal visit. Childhood asthma was identified from diagnosis in hospitalization and outpatient specialist care records, and dispensations of asthma medication. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate the association of ART and asthma in the population, in children of couples with known infertility, and in a sample of siblings conceived with and without ART (differentially exposed).

Main results and the role of chance

Of the 1,671,532 live births in the cohort, 11.7% were born to couples with known infertility, and 3.5% were conceived with ART. Compared with all other children, children conceived by ART had a small, elevated risk of asthma (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR)=1.14, 95% Confidence interval (CI) 1.11 to 1.16). When the comparison was restricted to children of couples with known infertility the difference in risk was even smaller (aHR=1.07, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.10), and in the comparison of siblings conceived with and without ART no difference in risk was seen (aHR=0.98, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.13). Among children conceived with ART, those in which intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) had been used had a slightly lower risk of asthma (aHR=0.93, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.97), and no difference in risk was seen between use of fresh and frozen-thawed embryo transfer.

Limitations, reasons for caution

Sibling comparison is sensitive to potential misclassification, unmeasured confounding and carryover effects, so should be interpreted with this in mind. Differences in treatment implementation across time and settings could affect the ability to extrapolate the conclusions to another clinical context (where e.g., single-embryo transfer policy is not implemented).

Wider implications of the findings: This study found a modestly elevated risk of asthma in children conceived with ART to be largely explained by confounding from parental background factors. There were further no indications of adverse influence from increasingly utilized ART procedures such as ICSI or embryo-freezing, with respect to asthma in childhood.

Trial registration number

Not applicable