Health care costs resulting from IVF: prenatal and neonatal periods

BACKGROUND: The use of expensive infertility treatments is increasing rapidly. To compare the prenatal and neonatal health care costs after IVF and spontaneous conception, we conducted a study based on a cohort of IVF and control pregnancies and neonates. METHODS: A cohort of 215 IVF mothers and 255 IVF neonates were com-pared with a cohort of 662 control mothers and 388 control children, randomly chosen from the Finnish Medical Birth Register and matched for sex, year of birth, area of residence, parity, maternal age, socioeconomic status and plurality. The analyses on prenatal and neonatal costs were performed by plurality. Singletons were also com-pared with twins. The cost calculations were based on the known level of utilization of maternal and neonatal health care services. RESULTS: The total health care costs for an IVF singleton until the end of the neonatal period were e5780 and e15 580 for an IVF twin. The health care costs were 1.3-fold for IVF singletons and 1.1-fold for IVF twins compared to control singletons and twins. The costs for twins were,3-fold compared to singletons. CONCLUSIONS: The health care costs of an IVF singleton neonate were higher than those of a spontaneously conceived control neonate with similar backgrounds. For twins the health care costs were equal. Multiple births increase the health care costs and therefore the reduction of multiple pregnancies is the most effective way to reduce the health care costs resulting from IVF. Key words: costs/health care/IV