The mission of the Assisted Reproductive Technology and health partnership (A.R.T-HEALTHPARTNERSHIP) is to provide robust evidence on the effects of pregnancy conception by ART, compared with natural conception, on mothers and offspring health from pregnancy through to early adulthood.
Key aims are
- To develop methods that can improve causal understanding of the effects of ART on mother and child health.
- To systematically compare results from different types of studies, data and methods to obtain robust evidence of the effect of ART on mother and child health.
- We will focus initially on effects of ART on the following:
- Perinatal outcomes, including pregnancy loss, small for gestational age, large for gestational age and preterm birth
- Child (offspring) growth, including weight, height, body mass, fat mass, waist circumference.
- Child (offspring) cardiovascular and metabolic health, including blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin, lipid, and inflammatory marker concentrations.
- Child (offspring) molecular concentrations, including multiple metabolites and proteins.
- Child (offspring) reproductive outcomes, including timing of puberty, age at first pregnancy, number of children, fertility, use of ART.
- Child (offspring) mental health and cognitive outcomes
- For all of 3 b to f above, where appropriate we will explore whether effects of ART on outcomes change over time as the child ages.
- To develop a network and process for supporting a wide range of projects related to the mission, including outcomes in mothers and additional outcomes in children/offspring.