Effect of paternal body mass index on maternal and child-health outcomes of singletons after frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycles: a retrospective study

Abstract

The objective was to analyze the effect of paternal body mass index (BMI) on maternal and child-health outcomes of singletons after frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) cycles. A retrospective cohort study was conducted between January 2019 and December 2021. Pregnancy, perinatal complications and neonatal outcomes were compared among different paternal BMI. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to evaluate the relationship between different paternal BMI and pregnancy, obstetric and neonatal outcomes. The paternal normal group was more likely to suffer from gestational hypertension than the paternal obesity group (3.59% vs. 2.42%), and paternal underweight group was more likely to suffer from preeclampsia than the other three groups (11.63% vs. 4.43%, 7.57%, 4.03%). Birthweight among infants in the paternal overweight categories was significantly higher than infants in the paternal normal weight categories. The rate of foetal macrosomia was higher among infants in the paternal overweight (12.36%) category, while lower among infants in the paternal underweight categories (2.33%). The incidence of macrosomia in the paternal overweight categories (aOR 1.527, 95% CI 1.078–2.163) was significantly higher than those normal controls after adjustment for known confounding factors. The rates of LGA babies were higher in the paternal overweight category (aOR 1.260, 95% CI 1.001–1.587) compared with those in the paternal normal weight category, before and after adjustment. The results suggest that parental pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity has an adverse effect on the perinatal complications and neonatal outcomes.

Keywords:

• Paternal
• body mass index
• assisted reproductive technology
• frozen embryo transfer
• pregnancy complications
• neonatal outcomes

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the physicians, nurses, and scientific staff of Department of Reproductive Medicine, Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital.

Statement of Ethics

The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee of our hospital and was performed after obtaining informed consent from each patient.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding sources

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81871210) and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20171126).