This is great news for women suffering from cystic fibrosis. A recent study has found that the disease will not stand in their way to have successful fertility treatment and have babies. It will neither leave any adverse effect on either themselves or their children.

Until a few years back, women with cystic fibrosis were like those on a death sentence. They never lived long, most of them not past their teen years. With advances in medical field, it is not a life-threatening disease anymore. However, cystic fibrosis (CF) still poses many health problems like complications during pregnancy and infertility.

The study group comprised of a set of infertile women with CF. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) was used to treat them to overcome their infertility. Out of 24 women, 15 received fertility treatment through ART. Three were found to be medically unfit for treatment and the rest of the six are still under assessment.

Dr Sylvie Epelboin, coordinator of the Paris-based ART-CF disease network, explains that women with CF have thick cervical mucus, which prevents natural conception. In these cases, pregnancy is possible with artificial methods like intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilization (IVF). Depending on the woman’s pulmonary and nutritional status and ethical issues like the resultant health concerns of mother and child, fertility treatment has to be finalized.

As all the 15 women had partners without the CF gene mutation and normal fertility indicators, IUI method was tried with success in 14 cases. One woman underwent IVF to become pregnant. Totally, there were 12 live births with not even one baby with low birth weight (below 1500g). The mothers recorded a slight decline in lung function during pregnancy, but remained healthy otherwise. All children born are aged 10 years to one month and are healthy.

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