Children born following so-called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) do not differ from children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or children conceived naturally in mental or motor abilities at 5 years of age, a multinational study shows.

ICSI involves injecting a sperm directly into an egg, under a microscope. Because the technique bypasses natural sperm-selection barriers, and may use less than ideal sperm, there have been concerns that this could have repercussions for children born as a result of the process, Dr. A. G. Sutcliffe and colleagues explain in the medical journal Pediatrics.

Sutcliffe, at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, and associates tested 511 children conceived by ICSI, 424 conceived by IVF and 488 conceived naturally. The subjects were recruited from clinics in five European countries.

Children were approximately 5 years old when they underwent testing. The researchers found no differences among the groups on verbal IQ, performance IQ or full-scale IQ scales, or on tests of motor skills.

“No interaction effects were found between the mode of conception and demographic variables, indicating that these results were not influenced by gender, nationality, maternal educational level, or maternal age at the time of birth,” Sutcliffe’s team reports.

Only in the subgroup of first-born children with mothers who gave birth between ages 33 to 45 did naturally conceived children score significantly better on the verbal and full-scale scores compared with those born by assisted reproductive technology.

Even in this subgroup, however, the difference was less than 1 IQ point higher in the naturally conceived group, suggesting that the difference had “no clinical relevance.”

SOURCE: Pediatrics, March 2005.