AN ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN BORN THROUGH IN VITRO FERTILIZATION HIGHLIGHTING COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

More than ten million infants have been conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF), but uncertainties remain about whether methods used in assisted conception leave any trace of their influence on psychophysiological development in later life. This review presents findings from empirical and meta-analytic studies published between 2010 and 2025 about cognitive and behavioral features of children born through IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies. A narrative-synthesis method was used to examine peer-reviewed cohort studies, registry-based studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses about neuromotor, cognitive, behavioral, psychosocial, and epigenetic features of development from infancy to adolescence. The findings suggest that after adjusting for multiple pregnancies, prematurity, and low birthweight, cognitive trajectories of children conceived through IVF do not differ much from those of naturally conceived children, with only better performance of IVF children in language and inconsistent school achievements. Behavioral features, such as attention control and emotional-social functioning, are similar in both groups of children; however, several registry-based cohorts revealed slightly higher risks of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorders, and children conceived via intracytoplasmic sperm injection show higher relative risks of intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders than children conceived via conventional IVF. Epigenetic and imprinting mechanisms are considered plausible biological mediators for these differential risks, but at a low-risk level regardless of procedure type. The concept of determiner–mediator–outcome structure is put forth to provide an explanatory framework for biomedical, perinatal, and familial determiners. Pooled evidence (2010-2025) revealed equal cognitive and psychological performance in children born using assisted reproductive technology compared to children born naturally, with relative risks around 1 for intellectual disabilities (RR=1.01), autism spectrum disorders (RR=0.98), and behavioral disorders (RR=1.04), but greater risks of neurodevelopmental complications existed in children born via I. The integration of findings also highlights procedure-specificity, that is, fresh vs frozen embryo transfer and IVF vs ICSI, as the key analytic variable, which was overshadowed by previous undifferentiated comparisons. Implications include procedure-specific postnatal monitoring, parental counseling, and longitudinal follow-ups into the teenage years in order to understand better the academic and psychosocial development of these offspring.

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