Could ovarian stimulation cause an increase in oocyte chromosome abnormalities?

Ovarian stimulation undertaken by women of advanced maternal age (over 35 years) receiving fertility treatment may be disrupting the normal pattern of meiosis – a critical process of chromosome duplication followed by two specialised cell divisions in the production of oocytes and sperm – and leading to abnormalities of chromosome copy numbers (aneuploidy) that result in IVF failure, pregnancy loss or, more rarely, the birth of affected children with conditions such as Down's syndrome, which is caused by the inheritance of three copies of chromosome 21 (trisomy 21).

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