Database for IVF-born children established in Shanghai
A database for 4,500 children born through in vitro fertilization technology was established at the Shanghai International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital on Sunday.
The program, with the participation of six leading maternity and pediatric hospitals in the city, will establish a unified standard to cover all information on prenatal, newborns and infants. The database will track the babies when they are three months old.
It is expected to be expand to follow their entire childhood and even adulthood to achieve a whole-life clinical database for research into the health and epidemiology of children born though IVF technology.
Through studying the environment for early-stage of life, nutrition and genetics, medical expects can offer more suggestions and strategies to enhance the health of children born through IVF and improve population quality, health officials said.
“We are not only focusing on population quality but also the middle- and long-term health of IVF-born people,” said Liu Zhiwei from the Shanghai International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, and leader of the project.
“Establishment of the database allows us to grasp the epidemiological features of IVF-born children in Shanghai to boost clinical quality and research ability of IVF technology and promote our experiences nationwide.”
Babies born through IVF technology has risen by four times in China in the past 10 years, rising from 0.46 percent of newborn children in 2009 to 2.37 percent in 2018.
Several families returned to the hospital to share their stories of IVF-aided births.
A woman, who delivered a son at the hospital 20 years ago, shared her story.
“It was such an awkward thing to go to hospital for such a problem at that time," said the woman surnamed Chen, who delivered a healthy boy through IVF in April, 2001.
"But I feel lucky that I had the nerve to do so and thank the hospital and all medical staff, who gave me chance to be a mother."
The boy is now a university student.
The hospital said its first IVF-aided baby was born 30 years ago and he has become a father recently.
A database for 4,500 children born through in vitro fertilization technology in Shanghai was unveiled at the Shanghai International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital on Sunday.
