Infertility treatment carries increased risk of stroke hospitalization

Women who who conceive following infertility treatment appear to have a higher likelihood of stroke-related hospitalization within 12 months of delivery as compared with those who spontaneously conceive, according to a study.

Researchers used data from the Nationwide Readmissions Database in the US and looked at women aged 15‒54 years who had a hospital delivery in a given calendar year and those who had subsequent hospitalizations in the same calendar year of delivery.

The analysis included 31,339,991 women, of whom 287,813 (0.9 percent, median age 32.1 years) underwent infertility treatment and 31,052,178 (99.1 percent, median age 27.7 years) delivered after spontaneous conception.

The rate of stroke hospitalization within 12 months of delivery, the primary outcome, was 37 hospitalizations per 100,000 people among those who received infertility treatment and 29 hospitalizations per 100,000 people among those who delivered after spontaneous conception. The corresponding rate difference was 8 hospitalizations per 100,000 people.

Of note, the risk of hospitalization for haemorrhagic stroke (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 2.02, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.13–3.61) was higher than that for ischaemic stroke (adjusted HR, 1.55, 95 percent CI, 1.01–2.39).

The risk of stroke-related hospitalization was evident as early as 30 days after delivery and increased thereafter. In general, the association between infertility treatment and stroke-related hospitalization was larger for haemorrhagic stroke and smaller for ischaemic.

The findings highlight the importance of timely follow-up in the immediate days postpartum and of continued long-term follow-up in order to mitigate stroke risk among women who delivered via infertility treatment.