Pregnant people who conceived via frozen embryos may be at an increased risk of high blood pressure, according to a new study.
The report, published earlier this month in the medical journal Hypertension, compiled data from 4.5 million pregnancies to investigate whether in vitro fertilization (IVF) with frozen embryos impacted a pregnant person’s risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure. More than 33,000 pregnancies were also grouped for sibling comparison among people who conceived their children via different methods.
Overall, researchers found that pregnancies from frozen embryos were associated with a “74 percent higher risk of developing a hypertensive disorder” versus pregnancies from non-frozen embryos.
This association is important information for expecting parents who conceived from frozen embryos, which is common in IVF procedures. Hypertension during pregnancy can signal preeclampsia, a serious blood pressure condition that can be life-threatening for both a pregnant person and their baby, so any risk factors are worth noting to your team of medical providers.
“Our sibling comparisons indicate that the higher risk is not caused by factors related to the parents, rather, however, that some IVF treatment factors may be involved,” said Sindre H. Petersen, M.D., the study’s lead author, said in a statement to SciTechDaily. “Future research should investigate which parts of the frozen embryo transfer process may impact risk of hypertension during pregnancy.”
As of 2014, nearly one million babies have been conceived via IVF in the United States. Freezing eggs or embryos for conception in the future is very common, especially among people who are concerned about fertility preservation or who want to postpone pregnancy until later in life. After all, there is no right or wrong time — or way — to have a baby.
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