Breastfeeding in women who conceived using fertility treatments: a systematic review

Women subjected to fertility treatment present needs requiring medical attention and decision-making processes before and after delivery that might influence their behaviour in maternal breastfeeding. This review examined the effect of fertility treatments on the start, duration and exclusiveness of maternal lactation based on all the observational studies that compared some result of maternal lactation according to the form of conception. Two reviewers extracted the data and evaluated the risk of bias. The effect of fertility treatments on the results of maternal lactation was small or not significant, and on occasions contradictory. The evidence is limited due to the low number of articles of sufficient quality included. For the time being, fertility treatments do not seem to influence the start, duration and exclusiveness of maternal lactation, but until more and better studies are available, individualized support is recommended for each mother-child dyad according to its characteristics.