Assisted fertilization techniques have helped thousands of couples conceive. Prenatal screening tests, on the other hand, provide information on the health of the fetus. Nonetheless, according to some researches, assisted fertilization would be detrimental to the child's cognitive abilities. A study by Dr Melissa Mills's team at Oxford University denies this theory.

The researchers started from the Millennium Cohort Study data. The study follows today more than 18,500 children born in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2001. The researchers submitted the children to cognitive tests between 3 and 11 years. Among these were 125 children born from in vitro fertilization and 61 by intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Children between 3 and 5 years of age from assisted fecundation received higher marks in cognitive tests. Vows normalized around the age of 11, still remaining slightly above the average of peers. This means that conception does not affect the child's basic intellectual level.

What has more to do with intellectual abilities is the familiar background. Those who use IVF often have a high level of education and are more mature than those who naturally conceive. This also affects the education of the child. Probably this explains the most positive results of child children of assisted fecundation.

Source: medicaldaily.com