A new study shows a modest risk increase of adverse pregnancy outcomes for those with cardiometabolic risk factors undergoing fertility treatments like assisted reproductive technology (such as IVF) or intrauterine insemination. Dr. Anum Minhas discusses the importance of improving the overall health of a birthing individual, starting with addressing pre-pregnancy prevalence of obesity, hypertension and diabetes.
Hi, everyone. My name is Doctor Anna Minhas and I'm an assistant professor in medicine in the division of cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. And it's my pleasure today to share with you a little bit about research that will be presented at the American Heart Association's scientific session. This presentation is titled Associations between use of assisted reproductive technology and intra unit insemination with adverse pregnancy outcomes in us, natality data 2016 to 2021. So, in this work, we are interested in demonstrating what the risk is of average pregnancy outcomes such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, preterm, birth and gestational diabetes among individuals that undergo assisted reproductive technology or intrauterine insemination and among individuals that have prepregnancy, cardiometabolic risk factors such as hypertension diabetes and obesity. We know that in the United States as a whole, both the use of assisted reproduction and prepregnancy, cardiometabolic risk factors has increased in recent years along with increasing maternal age. So in this study, we use data from the National Vital Statistics System or birth certificate data from 2016 to 2021 and this data represents all live births in the country. So it provides a good. Look at the demographic of what is happening in the US as a whole. At any given time. Using this data, we find that in individuals that have prepregnancy, cardiometabolic risk factors, the additional risk from undergoing assisted reproduction or intrauterine insemination of developing adverse pregnancy outcomes is present but it is less than a synergistic or additive increase in risk. So what this means is that while those individuals that have prepregnancy cardio metabolic risk factors do have a further additional increase in the risk of developing a pregnancy outcomes. With the use of assisted reproduction. Overall, that risk of assisted reproduction in the setting of having prepregnancy, risk factors is fairly modest. Ultimately, these findings tell us that we should focus on improving the health of birthing individuals and of reproductive age individuals overall in the country and in reducing prepregnancy, prevalence of obesity hypertension and diabetes. Thank you for your attention.