Women who conceive through assisted reproductive technology have almost double the risk of heart failure during delivery admissions than those who conceive naturally, US doctors say.

Their population-based study of 46 million deliveries over an 11-year period also suggests an elevated risk of other cardiovascular (CV) complications such as pre-eclampsia, arrhythmias, and venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Although assisted reproductive technology (ART) has already been linked to obstetric complications, the association with peripartum CV adverse events has been less clear, the authors report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Cardiologist Dr Erin Michos, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues analysed delivery hospitalisations using a national database, which included 109,000 women who conceived with the help of fertility treatments to determine risk of CV complications.