[Condition of the children born after assisted reproduction in Czech Republic].

Objective: A retrospective study of data, with an analysis of bio-social factors and the incidence of birth defects in the children born out of pregnancy resulting from assisted reproduction in the Czech Republic in the period from 1995 to 2002. Also, the objective was to analyse these factors in comparison with a group of children born during the same period after spontaneous conception.
Data Source and Methods: The data were obtained from the National Health Registers, the administration of which has been entrusted to the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (IHIS CR). Specifically, the National Register of Birth Defects and the National Register of Neonates were used. Groups of children born after spontaneous conception and after assisted reproduction were analysed. We analysed the frequency of pregnancy, the gestation week at birth and birth weight, the incidence of immaturity at birth, hypotrophy, hypertrophy, the incidence of birth defects in prenatally and postnatally diagnosed cases and the mortality rate during the 1st year of life.
Results: In the period 1995-2002, a total of 731,617 children were born in the Czech Republic. During the same period, a total of 14,243 children were born after assisted reproduction. A statistically significant higher (p<0.0001) proportion of the children born out of multiple pregnancies (40% in the assisted reproduction group as compared with 1.7% in the spontaneous conception group) was identified. The overall mortality rates (early neonatal mortality and infant mortality) are significantly influenced by the number of children within a pregnancy, and as a consequence of the unfavourable distribution in the assisted reproduction group (statistically significant higher representation of children from multiple pregnancies), the rates are higher in the assisted reproduction group.
Conclusion: The frequencies of children born with a birth defect in the assisted reproduction group and in the group of other born children were not statistically significant. The differences in mortality rates, birth weights and the gestation week are caused by the unfavourable demographic distribution in the assisted reproduction group.