Symposium: Embryo implantation failure and recurrent miscarriage Pregnancy loss and assisted reproduction: preliminary results after the law 40/2004 in Italy

The new Italian law on assisted reproduction technology rules that no more than three oocytes can be fertilized at one time, and that all embryos obtained must be transferred to the maternal uterus simultaneously. The aim of the present study was to investigate the infl uence of the new law on spontaneous embryonic/fetal losses through comparison of data collected over an identical period of time: the fi rst year of application of the new law compared with the same time period 1 year before (March 10, 2004 to March 9, 2005 versus March 10, 2003 to March 9, 2004). A total of 271 clinical pregnancies were analysed. In the post-law period, a signifi cantly lower percentage of total spontaneous embryonic losses compared with the pre-law period, and a higher percentage of surviving embryos in singletons and twins was observed. In conclusion, the impact of the limitations imposed by the new legislation regulating assisted reproduction in Italy seems to exert positive effects on spontaneous embryonic loss both in singletons and multiple pregnancies. These fi ndings are in contrast to international predictions on this issue and, in general, are counter-intuitive. This suggests that further investigations on a larger cohort of women are required to confi rm these preliminary results.