Objective: Women who conceive with the assistance of fertility treatments are at increased risk for multiple-gestation pregnancies and accompanying adverse pregnancy outcomes. The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) can be used to assess outcomes associated with fertility treatments, but a previous study suggested that PRAMS questions about fertility treatments overestimated use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) by 2.6 times. These PRAMS ART questions were revised in 2004. We compared prevalence estimates based on revised questions with counts from the National ART Surveillance System (NASS), the standard for describing ART prevalence.
Methods: We compared weighted PRAMS prevalence estimates of births conceived by using ART with corresponding counts from NASS for three states (Florida, Maryland, and Utah) for 2004. We also compared these data by age, parity, plurality, and infant birthweight.
Results: Estimated ART births determined from PRAMS totaled 3,672 (95% confidence interval 2,210, 5,134), compared with 2,939 ART births reported to NASS. PRAMS estimates and NASS counts differed by maternal age (p=0.02) and parity (p<0.01). For example, PRAMS responses from women aged ≥ 40 years overestimated ART use by 70% (27.9% vs. 16.5%, p<0.01).
Conclusions: Revised PRAMS questions better estimate numbers of ART births than earlier PRAMS questions. PRAMS data are useful to describe behaviors and outcomes associated with ART use.