ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Reproduction
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1630293
Impact of Embryo Transfer Strategies on Children Health Outcomes: A Retrospective National Cohort Study in Taiwan
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nuwa Fertility Center, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
- 3Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital,, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
To investigate the impact of different assisted reproductive technology (ART) embryo transfer strategies on neonatal and early childhood health outcomes, focusing on fresh versus frozen transfers and cleavage versus blastocyst stages.Design: Retrospective cohort study analyzing data from Taiwan's national assisted reproduction database (2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017).The study included 10,803 ART-conceived singleton births and 894,615 naturally conceived singletons. ART groups were categorized by embryo transfer type: fresh cleavage stage, fresh blastocyst, frozen cleavage stage, and frozen blastocyst. Maternal, paternal, and perinatal outcomes were adjusted using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW). Outcomes included major and minor diseases in offspring, such as ADHD, developmental delays, atopic dermatitis, and respiratory diseases.ART-conceived children had higher rates of major and minor health conditions compared to naturally conceived peers, particularly preterm birth, ADHD, and developmental delay. No significant differences were observed in major disease incidence between frozen and fresh transfers or cleavage and blastocyst stages. The elevated risks in ART-conceived children may reflect the influence of underlying parental infertility rather than ART procedures alone.While ART is linked to increased risks of certain adverse health outcomes, the choice between embryo transfer strategies has minimal impact on neonatal or early childhood health. These findings underscore the need to optimize ART protocols and perinatal care while addressing the role of parental infertility in shaping offspring health.
Keywords: Assisted reproductive technology (ART), embryo tranfer, Frozen embryo transfer (FET), Child health & development, fresh embryo transfer (fET), Perinatal outcomes
Received: 17 May 2025; Accepted: 13 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chang, Weng, Chuang, Hsu and Tsai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eing Mei Tsai, Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.