Does putting the clocks forward make IVF more likely to fail?

Conclusion This study has identified a link between the clocks going forward in spring and pregnancy loss for women who have had IVF embryos implanted in the past 21 days. This link seemed to be particularly pronounced in women who had experienced pregnancy loss before. However, there are some important limitations to bear in mind: The women were all taken from one clinic in America, and were mostly white, so it is hard to generalise results to other populations, including women in a UK setting. Further studies in women from multiple clinics and in different countries are needed to check whether the link is seen in these settings. Although the study included more than 1,500 cycles of IVF, once the researchers started splitting women up into subgroups for analysis (for example, those having IVF in spring, and who had a previous pregnancy loss) the numbers were smaller. Larger studies are needed so we can be more confident in the results. As this was a retrospective study that looked back at medical records, the researchers only had access to data that was recorded at the time. This may not have included important factors that they may have wanted to take into account, for example life events occurring at the time, diet, family and other socio-economic factors. A prospective study, looking forward, would be needed to ensure the researchers had all the relevant data. The underlying biological mechanism for this apparent link was not studied, so it cannot be said wha...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Source Type: news