IVF kids mentally healthy, Dutch researchers say

With IVF being an increasingly popular and widely used medical procedure, speculations about the health consequences of IVF are also on the rise. Recent studies have claimed that IVF-lings have a higher chance of developing heart disease and diabetes. But how about the mental health of people conceived through IVF? Well, new Dutch research indicates that there is no difference between the mental health of IVF-lings and those conceived in other ways. This Dutch study is unique in that it bypassed doctors, other medical professionals, and parents and opted to get their answers right from the source instead.

Researchers surveyed teenagers who were conceived through IVF, and their answers were more than reassuring. The teenagers interviewed by the research team from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam were between 11 and 18 years old. They answered a range of questions about behavioral, emotional and social problems that experienced in the last half year. Funnily enough, the non-IVF control group had encountered more problems than their invitro fertilized counterparts. To make the results of the study more accurate, the non-IVF group that was surveyed came from parents who conceived after struggling with infertility, but without IVF. Neither IVF conception as such nor growing up as a child of parents who used IVF seems to be an adverse condition for behavior and psychosocial well-being in adolescence," the researchers told the press. After all the negative press that IVF has been receiving in the last month or so, I think this newly published study makes a welcome change.

These Dutch researchers did a great thing in talking to IVF teenagers themselves in doing so, the answers they received were not mere speculation about the mental health of IVF-lings, but an insight into their real states of mind. Among other things, the Dutch researchers showed that people who came into this world with the help of IVF are people just like anyone else. It was about time that we got a positive piece of IVF news this month!