It is difficult to analyze the effects of fertility treatments on health outcomes for women and babies because there can be many factors at play. For example, many women who use ART are older, have multiple babies, and have an underlying issue that gave rise to subfertility.
Therefore, without a large data set, it can be nearly impossible to thoroughly study the effects of IVF on health outcomes.
However, a new collaboration, termed Massachusetts Outcomes Study of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (MOSART), aims to develop the most comprehensive study of ART outcomes yet to date.
The study was formed as a partnership between the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART) and PELL.
Each organization has something that the other can benefit from. PELL is a Massachusetts database that contains all Massachusetts birth certificates and fetal death and hospital discharge records since 1998. SART collects detailed clinical data on assisted reproduction from clinics across the country, including seven in Massachusetts.
MOSART will investigate how ART affects health outcomes by combining information from the multiple respective databases.
There are 2 specific aims for the program:
Examine health outcomes of children up to age 3 who were conceived using ART;
Analyze long-term outcomes for women who gave birth through ART, compared to women who had infertility issues but did not get pregnant with ART, and women who gave birth through natural conception.
The study has a number of other clinical and academic partners, including BUSPH, Michigan State, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.