Impact of maternal education level on live birth rate after in
vitro fertilization: a retrospective cohort study
Xitong Liu, a Xin Mu, a Juanzi Shi,a Haiyan Bai, a
a The Assisted Reproduction Center, Northwest Women’s
and Children’s Hospital, Xi’an, China
Correspondence: Haiyan Bai, The Assisted Reproduction Center,
Northwest women’s and Children’s Hospital, Xi’an, China.
Email: flyindance29578@qq.com
ObjectiveTo examine the association between maternal education level and live
birth after in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Design Retrospective cohort study.
Setting Public fertility center in China.
Population 41546 women who underwent the first cycle of fresh
or frozen-thawed embryo transfer between 2014 and 2019.
Methods The women were divided into four educational categories
according to the level of education received (elementary school graduate
or less, middle school graduate, high school graduate, college graduate
or higher).
Main outcome measures Live birth rates.
Results Patients were grouped by maternal educational level:
elementary school graduate or less (n=1590), middle school graduate
(n=10996), high school graduate (n=8354), and college graduate or higher
(n=20606). The live birth rate, miscarriage rate, and clinical pregnancy
rate in elementary school graduate or less were lower compared to other
groups. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, we fail to
demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between educational
level and live birth in middle school graduate (adjusted odds ratio
[AOR] 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.84-1.09), high
school graduate (AOR 1.01; 95% CI, 0.87-1.14) or college graduate or
higher (AOR 1.01; 95% CI, 0.88-1.14) patients compared with the
elementary school graduate or less reference group after adjusting for
female age, infertility duration, BMI, EM thickness, no. of oocyte
retrieved, infertility type, protocol in the fresh cycle, fertilization
type, time of transfer and no. of embryo transferred.
Conclusion No statistically significant relationship was
identified between educational level and live birth in patients
undergoing fresh or frozen embryo transfer.
Keywords educational level, IVF, live birth rate
Tweetable abstract Maternal educational level does not
influence live birth in IVF.