Mental disorders in childhood and young adulthood among children born to women with fertility problems

participants/materials, setting, methods: Information concerning maternal fertility status for all children in the cohort was obtained by linkage to the Danish Infertility Cohort, which contains data on nearly all women with fertility problems in Denmark since 1963. A total of 124 269 (5%) children were born to women with fertility problems and 2 288 452 (95%) to women without fertility problems. To identify children hospitalized for a mental disorder, the cohort was linked to the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Registry. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between maternal fertility status and the risk of hospital admission or outpatient contact for various groups of mental disorders, including any mental disorder and all 11 main discharge diagnostic groups, classified according to the International Classification of Diseases, version 10. mainresul ts andtheroleofch ance:During a mean follow-up period of 21 years (range, 0– 40 years), 168 686 (7%) children were admitted to hospital or had an outpatient contact for a mental disorder. Children born to women with fertility problems had a significantly higher risk of any mental disorder (HR 1.23; 95% CI 1.20– 1.26) and for most of the 11 main discharge groups, including schizophrenia (HR 1.16; 95% CI 1.07 –1.27), mood (affective) disorders (HR 1.21; 95% CI 1.15 –1.28) and disorders of psychological development (HR 1.15; 95% CI 1.09 –1.21) as well as the subgroup of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (HR 1.36; 95% CI 1.29 –1.45) compared with children born to women without fertility problems. The risk estimates did not change markedly when analyses were performed separately for mental disorders diagnosed during childhood (0 –19 years) and in young adulthood (20– 40 years). limitations, reason forcaution: The true risk of mental disorders may be somewhat underestimated, as only severe disorders requiring hospital admission or outpatient contact were considered as events. Furthermore, we could not determine whether the increased risks observed were due to factors related to the underlying infertility or to fertility treatment procedures.