As part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study , which gathers information on birth defects from 10 states , Reefhuis and her colleagues compared 281 births using ART with more than 14,000 naturally conceived births . The researchers looked at approximately 18 categories of birth defects , but only those four were found to be `` statistically significantly associated with ART . '' The study findings pertain only to single births ; the researchers did not find a link between ART and birth defects among multiple births . ART increases the chances of having a multiple birth , and infants born as part of a multiple birth are more likely to have birth defects regardless of the method of conception . `` It is important for parents to realize that the individual risk for these birth defects remain low , '' Reefhuis said . `` It sounds like a lot to say ' a two - to fourfold increased risk , ' but you have to keep in mind that the starting risk for these individual defects is actually pretty low . '' Still , says Reefhuis , in the interest of full disclosure and because the use of
ATLANTA , Georgia -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that infants born as a result of assisted reproductive technology , or ART -- such as in vitro fertilization and the use of donor eggs -- are two to four times more likely to be born with certain types of birth defects than infants conceived naturally . But , the study 's lead author says , the overall risk is still relatively low . With any pregnancy , there is a 3 percent risk of having a baby with a birth defect . `` The most important findings were that for infants conceived using ART , we see an increased risk for certain birth defects , '' said Jennita Reefhuis , Ph.D. , an epidemiologist at the CDC 's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities . She says that children conceived using ART were found to have twice the risk of septal heart defects -LRB- a `` hole '' in the heart -RRB- , more than twice the risk of cleft lip with or without cleft palate , and four times the risk of two gastrointestinal defects .