Australian clinicians are recommending a 36-week assessment for fetal position in women who conceive via assisted reproductive technology after their study showed they have higher odds of breech presentation. 

Women who conceived through IVF — with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection — had a 20% greater risk of the fetus being in a breech presentation than those who conceived spontaneously, the Monash University-led team say. 

Their population-based cohort study of nearly 356,000 singleton births is also the first to show a similar association between pregnancies following ovulation induction (OI) and fetal malpresentation. 

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the researchers said their results warranted closer scrutiny of women who conceived via IVF or OI.