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London:
Infertile men, please note — fertility jabs may be
harmful for your future child, for a new study says they
increase the risk of birth defects in kids.
The study by University of Adelaide on more than
300,000 babies found that children conceived through the
common method of fertility treatment had a significantly
higher risk of developing abnormalities than those
conceived naturally.
In fact, babies born as a result of intracytoplasmic
sperm injection (ICSI) — where a single sperm is
injected directly into egg — were more likely to suffer
abnormalities, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.
In ICSI, the embryologist injects a single sperm
directly through the shell of egg and depositing it
inside. This means that abnormal sperm, which would
normally be filtered out by the process, are able to
fertilize the egg.
However, researchers were unable to establish
whether this was because the ICSI technique itself
increases the risks of abnormality or because men
suffering from extreme sperm damage were more likely to
pass on genetic anomalies.
But the study also found that IVF treatment did not
increase risk of birth defects. In IVF treatment, sperm
and eggs are mixed together in a dish and sperm breaks
into the egg on its own in order for fertilisation to
occur. |
