A prospective longitudinal study of the physical, psychomotor, and intellectual development of singleton children up to 5 years who were conceived by intracytoplasmic sperm injection compared with children conceived spontaneously and by in vitro fertilization.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the somatic, psychomotor, and intellectual development of children conceived through intracytoplasmic single sperm injection (ICSI) over the whole preschool period.
DESIGN: Prospective, controlled, cohort study.
SETTING: Fertility clinic in Brussels, Belgium. PATIENT(S): Sixty-six ICSI-conceived children prospectively compared with 52 IVF-conceived and 59 spontaneously conceived children. All children were full-term singletons. INTERVENTION(S): Home visits by a trained psychologist. Standardized interviews. Assessments using the revised Brunet-Lézine scale and the revised Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Physical growth and general health. Formal developmental and intellectual assessments. RESULT(S): Children conceived by ICSI were healthy: no significant differences appeared in the incidence of combined congenital malformations (11.3%), health problems (44.1%), surgical interventions (18.6%), and hospitalizations (6.8%), nor for the developmental assessments (mean developmental quotient at 9 months: 93.9; at 18 months: 102.0). For the intellectual assessments, the between-group differences disappeared when adjusted for levels of parental education (mean intelligence quotient at 3 years: 97.0; at 5 years: 103.3). CONCLUSION(S): This pilot study shows that throughout the preschool period, ICSI-conceived children have psychomotor and intellectual development similar to that of IVF-conceived and spontaneously conceived children. These conclusions need to be confirmed by multicenter studies.