Children conceived by IVF: specifics of mental development

The study focuses on the problem of mental development of children conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and presents the results of a comparative research of cognitive development of 135 children conceived spontaneously and 135 children conceived by IVF, aged from 11 to 37 months. Data were collected at the Center for Family Planning and Reproduction, Moscow. We used diagnostics of infants’ neuropsychological development (E.L. Frukht), psycho-pedagogical study of mental development of early-aged children (E.A. Strebeleva) and medical history data. We found peculiarities in cognitive development of early-aged children conceived by IVF compared with those conceived spontaneously. Children born after 4-9 IVF cycles have demonstrated cognitive development lags significantly more often than those conceived naturally or after 1-3 IVF cycles. Among children conceived spontaneously share of children with normal cognitive development did not differ on the first, second and third years of life; in a group of children conceived after 1-3 IVF cycles, number of children with normal cognitive development increased from first to third year.