Infertility Treatment Blog

Infertility Treatment Clinics Support

2008-12-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

An infertility treatment clinic should be chosen according to your own requirements and availability. Nowadays you can expect great service from most infertility treatment centers that have online and phone support for patients and clients thanks to the medical answering service costs, which are affordable to these clinics.

People who answer the calls will be prepared to also answer all your questions and requirements; these are specially trained people that respond clearly and quickly. These medical answering services are provided by different companies and they help delivering messages to the doctors immediately via the preferred method of their choice.

For doctors, of course, this is a great choice, since patients will always have a response. No more waiting for the phone to ring and ring waiting to reach your infertility clinic. All the calls are answered on the first ring thanks to voicemail, and they can be classified in many ways. If the call is of urgency you will be able to talk with the operator directly who will be capable of helping you.

Communications are very important, and infertility clinics understand that. The interaction between doctor-patient must be fluid to ensure success in the many steps of this exciting experience.

IVF versus IVM

2007-05-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Standard IVF Treatments

- Once a day for 10 days prior to the start of her period, a woman injects herself with an antagonist hormone that down-regulates her ovaries so that they will respond better to the coming stimulation.

- On Day 2 or 3 of her period, a woman must have two daily injections for a week to 10 days of a follicle-stimulating hormone to spur the production of eggs.

- By the 10th day, the follicles enlarge, indicating the maturing eggs. At this point the woman gets an injection of human chorionic gonadotropin, which triggers the egg ovulation process but fertility doctors retrieve the eggs for IVF 36 hours later prior to them being released naturally.

- On average, this standard IVF protocol yields 10 mature eggs.

What it costs

At McGill, one cycle of IVF costs $4,500 plus the drugs, which add at minimum $2,500 per cycle, depending on the age of woman and amount needed. Treatments can easily run more than $7,000.

In Vitro Maturation

- The patient contacts the clinic on Day 3 of her menstrual cycle and undergoes an ultrasound, where doctors count the number of follicles present. If there are at least 10 follicles, where the eggs reside, visible in her ovaries, a second ultrasound is scheduled.

- On Day 8 of the cycle, doctors recount the follicles and check the lining of the uterus to ensure it is at least 6 mm thick if an embryo is to be implanted. If the count holds up, the patient is given an injection to trigger the ovulation process.

- About 36 hours later, doctors collect the immature eggs from the woman's ovaries.

- The immature eggs are then submerged in a mineral-rich liquid medium that mimics the fluid of the ovarian follicles and are placed in an incubator. Most eggs mature within 24 to 48 hours.

- Mature eggs can be fertilized, or, as part of the McGill clinical trial, frozen.

What it yields

- On average, doctors can collect an average of 10 immature eggs from women with polycystic ovaries (who have abnormally high follicle counts). Data from Korea suggest that IVM on other women can yield one mature egg and three to five immature eggs.

What it costs

At McGill, one IVM cycle costs $3,975 for Canadian residents.

Source: Dr. Ri-Cheng Chian, McGill University Health Centre, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Getting pregnant may simply be a matter of losing weight

2007-05-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

FOR A year, Carolyn Clement endured hormone injections that made her moody and weepy. But three years into her baby-making endeavours, she still could not get pregnant.

Instead of sending her down the expensive and invasive IVF path, her doctor told her to lose weight. She weighed 135 kilograms, and wasn't ovulating. Lapband surgery and lots of exercise helped her shed 30 kilograms, which triggered her ovaries back into action. Within five months, she was pregnant.

It was always going to be hard, because she had polycystic ovarian syndrome. But it was compounded by her obesity. Fat tissue can cause a hormonal imbalance that stops a woman ovulating. Losing weight reverses the imbalance.

Doctors have been drumming into women's heads the consequences of waiting until they are older before attempting to go forth and multiply. But the impact that other lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking and being overweight can have on fertility are not as well known.

Infertility affects about one in six couples, and the number of people turning to IVF has grown markedly, at huge expense to the health system. Medicare funding for assisted reproductive technology swelled from $39 million in 2000 to $108 million in 2005. But in at least some cases, adjusting lifestyle might negate the need for IVF treatment.

IVF doctors want people to do all they can to avoid IVF. The Fertility Society of Australia put in a submission to the federal budget for about $5 million for a public awareness campaign telling people how their behaviour can affect their fertility.

But, despite a Government-commissioned report last year recommending a campaign, there was no money for it in this week's budget. The Government says it is still considering it.

Health Minister Tony Abbott last week said he wanted people to have more babies. He wasn't concerned about the cost of IVF because he was in favour of anything that could increase the birthrate.

Read full article at Getting pregnant may simply be a matter of losing weight

Breaking the silence of IVF

2007-05-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

IT took two-and-a-half years, seven stimulated cycles and 24 embryo transfers for her to fall pregnant. For months, Lahra Carey, who was in her early 30s, lived on a diet of “hope and despair”. She struggled to conceive and, with that, she recalls, came “a stigma, an awkwardness and a silent struggle”.

She stopped going to her friends’ birthday parties for their children she didn’t attend brit milahs or l’chaims. She became adept at making excuses and threw herself headlong into work.

But still the question begged: would she ever be able to start a family?

“The concept that we might never have a child was horrifying,” she says. “It was like being on a seesaw that I didn’t want to live on indefinitely, and that’s where I found myself,” Carey, 38, told the AJN. “I was getting older, all my friends were having children and there I was, holding a handbag and not a baby.”

During her struggle to conceive, Carey and her husband Ben Cowen were looking into their options and turned their attention to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) at a Melbourne clinic.

At the time, she described a “cone of silence” that hung over IVF, which further isolated the Jewish couple.

Read more at Breaking the silence of IVF

Research may boost IVF success rate

2007-05-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Higher success rates for in-vitro fertilisation may result from a University PhD student’s research into measurements to assess the quality of eggs. Gabe Redding, who graduates with a Doctor of Philosophy in bioprocess engineering this afternoon, described his research as a novel integration of reproductive biology and engineering.

“The objective was to investigate tools and technologies that can be used to select the best eggs during IVF,” Dr Redding says. “The work focused on the oxygen levels in the follicle as a measure of egg quality.”

In addition to finding that current IVF techniques can expose the eggs to potentially detrimental temperature drops, Dr Redding investigated devices for measuring oxygen levels in the follicle. Such devices may enable the best eggs to be selected.

At present, most IVF clinics only use visual grading of the eggs after they are harvested and later similar checks on quality of the embryos. “But IVF could be dramatically changed if there was some measure of egg or embryos quality,” Dr Redding says.

Dr Redding’s study was undertaken as part of a wider programme contract awarded to AgResearch by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, titled Advanced tools for the problem of infertility in women. His PhD was carried out through the University’s Institute of Technology and Engineering, supervised by Associate Professor John Bronlund and Dr Alan Hart (AgResearch).

Dr Redding is continuing to work on the project, including extending the mathematical models which he developed for oxygen to consider other substances which may be important to the egg.

“The long-term goal is to fully explore the contribution engineering can make to improving the outcomes of assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF. The work is really novel because reproductive biology and engineering are two disciplines which are seldom paired.”

Dr Redding, who is aged 27, is originally from Napier.

Clearblue Fertility Monitor Value Kit

2007-04-09T00:54:00.000-07:00

What good is a fertility monitor? A fertility monitor is a great, I’d say indispensable tool if you want to get pregnant. It will help women identify five days of High fertility before reaching Peak Fertility phase. This in turn makes pregnancy much easier to achieve.

This is a must have. Although no method can guarantee 100% the chance of being pregnant, the Clearblue Fertility Monitor works with the greatest accuracy among other fertility monitors available. The monitor is a little pricey, but given the task it performs I’d say is pretty cheap, and easy to use.

This kit includes everything you need:

- The ClearBlue / ClearPlan Fertility Monitor
- A Package of 30 Test Sticks.
-Free Preseed Sample
- 5 Pregnancy test strips
-Free Insured Shipping

Buy from The Fertility Shop

China Faces Low Fertility Issues

2007-04-09T00:44:00.000-07:00

HANGZHOU, April 9 (Xinhua) -- China, the country with more population in the World is suffering from low fertility levels. Around 10% of couples can't conceive, as recent studies have shown.

As a populated country, data was hard to gather, and statistics were hard to get, but individual reports on specific areas gave a whole look at the fertility situation in China, thus resulting in this 7 - 10 percentage of infertility among married couples as stated by Professor Wang Yifei, form the Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Before these studies, the blame of infertility and miscarriages was age. Women delayed childbirth until 35 old. But now results show that male infertility is also on the rise, with almost a 60% decrease in sperm count compared tot he 70s.

"A certain percentage of the sperm donated by seemingly healthy college boys to our sperm bank in Shanghai are not eligible in terms of sperm count or motility," Wang said.

There is no official results, but experts believe that around 10 million families need IVF or fertility treatment.

A reproduction health specialist in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, has attributed the rising infertility rates to stressful and unhealthy lifestyles linked to China's dramatic social and economic changes -- including obesity, drinking, smoking and environmental problems.

"The problem deserves attention from all walks of life because it threatens the quality and structure of our future population," said Prof. Huang Hefeng, of Zhejiang University, at an ongoing symposium on reproduction health in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang.

IVF: Is having twins really so bad?

2007-04-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

The Birth of twins would seem like the best possible outcome for any couple undergoing fertility treatment: years of longing for a family rewarded with not just one, but two bundles of joy. It's a scenario that has become increasingly common in the past few decades as the number of multiple births in the UK has risen significantly, mainly thanks to the success of IVF procedures.

But behind the cute images of twins and triplets lie some harsh medical statistics. While the majority of twin babies grow into healthy children, multiple births carry far greater risks and can result in a traumatic start to life, including weeks spent in an intensive care unit. More than 100 IVF babies will die each year as a consequence of being born in a multiple birth and some will be affected by lifelong disabilities, such as cerebral palsy. In addition, the mother is also more likely to suffer dangerous complications during the pregnancy.

Read full article at: IVF: Is having twins really so bad?

Move to restrict IVF treatments could hurt many women

2007-04-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

LONDON - The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which regulates IVF treatments in the UK, is to place restrictions on the number of embryos that can be implanted in women. Instead of the current two embryos, officials are planning to implant just one because of fears that IVF treatments would lead to a surge in multiple births.

The Observer reported that only those women who do not respond to treatment and older women would be eligible to receive more than one embryo. Some 30,000 women undergo IVF treatment annually in the country.

Critics said the new rules would halve the chance of successful conception in women. HFEA is also thought to be on the verge of instructing doctors to cut the incidence of multiple births through IVF from the prevailing 25 percent to around 10 percent.

The new policy is supposed to receive backing from fertility organizations like "Tamba, the Infertility Network UK, the Multiple Births Foundation and the British Fertility Society," the Observer reported.

The BBC though reports that the HFEA has denied reports it was about to bring these restrictions in place. It said the decision was yet to be made and if it is to be made then a public consultation would be launched first.

Recent Research Says Single-Embryo Transfer IVF as Effective as Multiple Embryo Transfers

2007-03-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

An increasing amount of research, including a study published in the March 22 edition of the journal Lancet, suggests that implanting one embryo for in vitro fertilization treatment is as likely to result in pregnancy as implanting multiple embryos, but some physicians say that most IVF patients are not interested in single-embryo transfer, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, the likelihood of multiple births, premature birth and low birthweight increase with the number of embryos implanted during an IVF procedure. The Lancet study, led by Bart Fauser of Utrecht University, compared a group of women under age 38 who underwent a single-embryo transfer and a milder ovarian stimulation with a group of women who underwent multiple embryo transfers and standard ovarian stimulation. The multiple embryo group had a higher pregnancy rate after one or two IVF cycles, but the rate of the two was the same after one year.

Read full news at Recent Research Says Single-Embryo Transfer IVF as Effective as Multiple Embryo Transfers

Researchers Examine Protein Vital To Reproduction, Regulation May Increase Chances Of Pregnancy

2007-03-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

In its early and most critical stages, human reproduction requires precise, vital functions. The role of one sperm-delivered protein, which is crucial to the process, is being closely observed by scientists from the United States and Canada. Lab tests in recent years have produced valuable information and hopes of regulating that protein to enhance fertility.

Peter Sutovsky, assistant professor of animal sciences in the University of Missouri-Columbia's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology in the School of Medicine, has collaborated with Richard Oko, professor of anatomy and cell biology at Queen's University (Ontario), and other academic researchers examining the role of postacrosomal sheath WW domain binding protein (PAWP), which during fertilization must function properly to initiate the reproduction process. If not, reproduction won't occur, Sutovsky said.

Read full article at Researchers Examine Protein Vital To Reproduction, Regulation May Increase Chances Of Pregnancy

Fat content of dairy foods influences fertility

2007-03-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

Question: Women sometimes have trouble conceiving because of problems with ovulation. Might the foods they eat - specifically, the fat content of dairy products, thought by some to affect ovulation - alter women's odds of becoming pregnant?

The study: It analyzed medical and diet data on 18,555 married women, most in their early 30s, who had no history of fertility problems and who had tried to conceive or had become pregnant. During an eight-year span, infertility caused by an ovulatory problem was diagnosed in 438 of the women. This type of infertility was 85 percent more likely among those who consumed two or more servings a week of low-fat dairy products (such as skim milk, yogurt, sherbet, cottage cheese) than among women whose low-fat dairy intake was less than a serving a week. By contrast, women who consumed at least one serving a week of a high-fat dairy product (whole milk, ice cream, cheese) were 27 percent less likely to have ovulation-related infertility. Analysis of specific foods indicated that eating ice cream at least twice a week lowered the risk of infertility by 38 percent; adding a serving a day of yogurt increased the risk by 11 percent.
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Who may be affected by these findings: Women trying to conceive. Fertility is generally questioned when couples have been trying to conceive unsuccessfully for a year. Problems with ovulation are the source of infertility among women about a third of the time.

Read full article at Fat content of dairy foods influences fertility

IVF patients ignore data, keep hoping for twins

2007-03-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

By Catherine Elton, Globe Correspondent | March 26, 2007

It's long been the Catch-22 of in-vitro fertilization: The chances of a successful pregnancy increase with the number of embryos implanted, but so does the likelihood of multiple pregnancies, which are riskier for both mother and offspring.

Now a new study and a growing body of research suggest that, ultimately, implanting only one embryo is just as likely to lead to pregnancy.

More and more doctors are lauding and promoting the practice of these so-called single-embryo transfers. At Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Thomas Toth, director of reproductive endocrinology, said it's been his "personal passion" in recent years. In 2006, he said, fully 25 percent of the 500 IVF cycles Mass. General performed were single-embryo transfers.

But other local doctors say that most of their infertility patients simply aren't interested.

That's because with single-embryo transfers it takes more tries -- and therefore more time -- to get pregnant. And when it comes to infertile patients, time is crucial.

Read full article at IVF patients ignore data, keep hoping for twins

IVF Mistakes: Making Sure The Baby Is Yours

2007-03-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates 1.2 million women had an infertility-related medical appointment in 2002. More and more couples are seeking out infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). As the business for assisted reproduction technology booms, especially IVF, this lawsuit highlights the chance for mix-ups.

In 2002, a white British couple gave birth to black twins after an IVF mix-up. While this is not a common occurrence, clearly, mistakes do happen. It is difficult to quantify how often these mistakes happen when babies are of the same race – because it is more difficult to detect.

Dr. Randy Morris, a board certified reproductive endocrinologist and medical director of IVF1 in Chicago notes, “Each year in the us there is something like 150,000 procedures performed. Generally a story makes the news, once a year, once every other, so the risk is an estimated 1 in 150,000. If you add to this to the fact that we don’t have statistics for how many times women have an intra-uterine performed, this is an exceedingly low number of these incidences.”

Dr. Susan Lobel, a reproductive endocrinologist at American Fertility Services adds, “All reputable programs have a very careful system so that mixing up of eggs and sperm doesn’t happen. While something like this happens and gets reported, in all the cases where this happens, there is a breach in the protocol. Labs have very careful systems set up. Most of the time when this happens its because someone has breached the system, and there isn’t a problem with the system.”

For couples concerned about genetic testing while undergoing IVF, there are options.

-- Preimplantation Genetics Diagnosis (PGD) – This technique identifies genetic defects in embryos created through IVF before they are transferred to the uterus. Collecting genetic material before implantation can ensure a couple that the embryo is, in fact, a genetic match. Ask your fertility clinic in advance if they offer this testing.

-- Amniocentesis – This is a common pre-natal test where doctors take a small sample of the amniotic fluid around the fetus for examination. It is used to diagnose chromosomal and genetic birth defects. Like PGD, this allows a couple to know if the fetus is a genetic match, however then a decision must be made about continuing the pregnancy.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which oversees IVF treatment in the United Kingdom, is also looking into ‘tagging’ embryos. The process would involve using a RFID tag, or barcode, on the sperm, eggs and embryos. The tags can set off an alarm if two Petri dishes that do not have compatible material get too close to each other. The safety and logistics of this method is still under investigation in the United Kingdom, but could offer another level of protection for patients.

For Orthodox Jewish couples, there are embryo watchers. A Rabbi oversees the process in the lab. Dr. Lobel says that this is not an option for everyone. She says this is a religious consideration, “analogous to if a restaurant is kosher, a Rabbi comes in to inspect and make sure they’re following the rules. Likewise with IVF a Rabbi, or someone who has training, comes in and observes the process. The reason is not to double check the doctors, or to imply there isn’t a system set up, but they’re there observing the process with regard to Jewish law. It is a very involved process, that is done with insemination as well as with IVF.”

So while the risk may be relatively small for a mix-up in the lab, anyone undergoing IVF should ask their doctor about the clinic’s safety procedures. Also, the fertility doctor should be a board certified reproductive endocrinologist, and the clinic should be registered with the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART). Any assisted reproduction procedure can be a costly and emotional journey for a couple, so they deserve every precaution to deliver the baby that represents the two parts that invested in that creation.

FoxNews.com health editor Katherine Tweed contributed to this report.

Dr. Manny Alvarez is the managing editor of health news at FOXNews.com, and is a regular medical contributor on the FOX News Channel. He is chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Additionally, Alvarez is Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.

Excess Weight Linked to Infertility

2006-12-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

Recent studies have added one more problem to the ones originated by overweight - and well you might have guessed it: infertility. Doctors have found that patients in fertility treatments, find more difficult to get pregnant if they have excess weight. They recommend always losing weight, if you want to get pregnant.

"That association is pretty well established," said Dr. Roger Lobo, a reproductive endocrinologist at Columbia University. Heavy women often don't ovulate normally because their hormones are out of whack. If they lose just 5 percent of their body weight, he said, "some will ovulate and even get pregnant with no further intervention."

You can find the original news here.

Australia: A compassionate call on IVF

2006-11-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

Children are one of life's most precious gifts; no parent could put a price on them. Most intending parents at first assume they will be blessed with children, but one in six couples has difficulties in conceiving. Medical advances have enabled some of these couples to have children, but IVF treatment comes at a cost, personal and financial, and success is not guaranteed. Even so, IVF gives couples who long to have children a second chance.

Both government and public understood the significance of this, hence Australia's generous IVF funding. Unsurprisingly, given the numbers of women who delay motherhood - often oblivious to how rapidly fertility falls with age - demand for IVF has grown. The Government's costs jumped from $50 million in 2003 to $79 million last year, when it proposed to set age limits and cap the number of funded IVF cycles. IVF, a tiny part of a $42 billion health budget, was singled out for an austerity campaign.

Since March, Health Minister Tony Abbott has sat on a report that said IVF is not appropriate for older women; the success rate past the age of 44 was less than 2 per cent. Yet when it released the report on Wednesday, the Government relented: funding would remain unrestricted and would be extended to another treatment for male infertility. This is a compassionate decision.

Not all women have a choice about delaying motherhood, for reasons that range from infertility and difficulty in finding the right partner to financial and career insecurity (a more family-friendly society might reduce the need for IVF). An education campaign on age and infertility also makes sense - preventive programs to alert people to potential problems tend to be highly cost-effective. There may be arguments to be had about allocating health resources, but IVF is a special case: nothing is more precious to most Australians than having children.

Single women in Britain can now get fertility treatment

2006-11-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

LONDON: Single women and lesbians in the UK will soon be entitled to have fertility treatment like their married or heterosexual counterparts.

Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, is going to propose a change in the law so that women can get IVF treatment without having to fulfil a legal requirement that the child has a father figure.

The present law demands that doctors take account of the role of the father in the child’s life before offering fertility treatment to women, either on the National Health Service or in private practice.

However doctors, politicians and gay rights groups believe this view is too old fashioned. Family units have now changed to include single mums or lesbian partners they claim. The new proposals, which are to be outlined in the Queen’s speech next week, aim to fill the current law’s lacunae and go against the government’s equality bill.

Ministers believe the present obligation to consider a child’s need for a father contradicts the equality bill that outlaws the refusal to provide goods or services on grounds of sexual orientation. It also goes against the Human Rights Act, which sets out an individual’s right to a family life and freedom from discrimination.

“The dropping of this discriminatory and unnecessary provision is long overdue,” said Dr Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and a member of the Commons and science and technology committee.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the body that regulates fertility treatment has welcomed the proposal.

However, The Sunday Times reported that family campaigners are expected to oppose the revision of the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

“The current act merely says that the need for a father should be taken into account. To eliminate even this token gesture towards the role of the father is an example of gender correctness at its most ridiculous and discriminates against men,” said Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics.

Having trouble getting pregnant? Book a 'procreation vacation'

2006-11-12T16:37:00.000-08:00

MIAMI ---- When Lucinda Hughes heard she would have to drink sea moss elixir while vacationing in the Bahamas, she was certain it would make her sick. Sure enough, three months later, Hughes is very sick ---- every morning ---- and expecting her first baby in April.

She got pregnant after she and her husband went on a three-day Procreation Vacation at a resort on Grand Bahama Island.

It's part of a trend in which hotels around the world are luring couples who are trying to have a baby. Resorts are offering on-site sex doctors, romantic advice and exotic food and drink calculated to put lovers in the mood and hasten the pitter-patter of little feet.

Even some obstetricians are promoting the trend. Dr. Jason James of Miami said he often encourages couples trying to have a baby to sneak away for a few days, and he often sees it work.

"One of the most easy, therapeutic interventions is to recommend a vacation," James said. "I think the effect of stress on our physiology is truly underestimated."

Hughes and her husband, Kemry, went to the Westin at Our Lucaya Grand Bahama Island, where the three-night Procreation Vacation starts at $1,893. They lounged on the beach, swam in the pool, sipped pumpkin soup and enjoyed couple's massages. Hughes and her husband were also served an age-old Caribbean fertility concoction three times a day: sea moss, the Caribbean's version of Viagra, mixed with evaporated milk, sugar and spices. (She said it tasted like an almond smoothie.)

The chain also offers the package at their resorts on St. John and Puerto Rico.

"My husband and I thought that we would go on the vacation and learn all these nice fertility secrets and we'd be practicing them for a number of months for them to work," said Hughes, 35, who conceived the day she got back from the trip. "We were stunned. There's definitely some truths to the foods and the elixirs."

The couple had been trying for only two months, since their wedding in May. But like most couples they have hectic schedules in Washington, where she is a freelance writer and he is a city employee. Cell phones are always ringing, day planners are jammed. "We're all overscheduled," Hughes said.

But the couple let go in the tranquil Bahamas and made time for luxuries often skipped at home, such as romantic dinners and cuddling, she said.

The Birds and the Bees package at the Five Gables Inn & Spa on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay includes a two-night stay with a couple's massage, oysters (purported to be an aphrodisiac) and wine, a pair of heart-print boxer shorts and a CD from love crooner Barry White for about $810 per couple.

There is a Procreation Ski Vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where couples can snuggle by a toasty fire, enjoy a candlelit dinner for two in their room and take a dogsled trip to a nearby hot springs at the Teton Mountain Lodge.

For about $1,800, couples can book a conception cruise on the "Love Boat." They are taken to a romantic island on the luxury liner of Singapore sex guru Dr. Wei Siang Yu.

At the Miraval Resort in Tucson, Ariz., sex experts Dr. Lana Holstein and her husband, Dr. David Taylor, help couples with such things as ovulation schedules and achieving intimacy.

"The damage that working for conception does to the sexual relationship, it's really, really impactful. This business about being so tense about conceiving a child and feeling like the clock is ticking makes people much more scheduled," said Holstein, author of "Your Long, Erotic Weekend." "They lose sight of the sensual."

She said getting away to spa or a hotel really can aid conception: "It's the relaxation factor. It's that all the other stressors in life are gone."

Now three months into the pregnancy, Lucinda and Kemry Hughes have picked out baby names: Kemry if it's a boy, and if it's a girl, Lucaya, for the resort that made it happen.

Heavy smoking affects the uterus

2006-11-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

Heavy smokers are less likely to become pregnant through IVF treatment, even with donated eggs, fertility experts have found.

Smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day, they said, makes the womb less receptive to the embryo and reduces the odds that it will implant and result in a pregnancy.

Smoking has been known to affect a woman's fertility, but Dr. Sergio Soares of the IVI Clinic in Lisbon and his team believe their findings are the first to show heavy smoking has an independent effect on the uterus.

The findings, which are published in the November issue of the journal Human Reproduction, show light smoking did not have any effect on the receptiveness of the uterus to the embryo.

Fertility Center Launching Study On Egg Freezing

2006-08-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -- Women wishing to put motherhood on hold may soon have more success.

The UConn Center For Reproductive Services is launching a major study on egg freezing.

UConn already freezes sperm and embryos. But, until now, it's been hesitant to freeze unfertilized eggs because of uncertainty over the success of thawing.

The health center is testing out two freezing methods to find out which one works best.

Egg freezing is currently done at some clinics, but doctors at UConn said it's still experimental.

UConn plans to enroll about 30 couples in the study, age 36 or younger, who would otherwise discard their unused eggs.

Scientists ‘modify’ goat in Lord Krishna’s land

2006-08-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

New Delhi: Indian scientists have been successful in genetically engineering goats, holding out the promise of the animals being reared in the country for their high milk yield and high quality meat to boost farmers’ incomes.

Krishna, a kid goat, was born at the Central Institute for Research on Goats (CIRG), Mathura, Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, a day after Janmashtami was celebrated to mark the birth of Lord Krishna in the town considered his birthplace.

The four scientists involved in the project took three years to achieve success in impregnating a nondescript breed goat with an ovum of a goat taken from an Agra abattoir and fertilised with the sperm of a Sirohi buck. “Our effort was a success as the kid is brown in colour, showing that it has inherited the Sirohi characteristics and not its foster mother’s,” said S K Jindal, principal scientist at CIRG.

The CIRG is the second institute after the Karnal-based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) to have successfully bred a goat kid through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

“Our aim through IVF is to conserve the germ-plasma of good breeds of goats and sheep and go in for genetic engineering of goats for multiple births,” said N P Singh, director, CIRG. The team is awaiting the outcome of two other Sirohi goats that have been impregnated. Further success would lead to qualitative improvement in the breeding of goats.

Blood test to tell you: It's now or never for a baby

2006-08-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Women can now find out how much time they have left to start a family with a simple blood test.

The test checks for levels of anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) which is made by the ovaries and plays a vital part in the production of the female hormone oestrogen. It also helps the egg mature each month.

The level of AMH indicates how well the ovary is functioning and, as this falls with age, experts believe it is the best indicator of future fertility.

One in seven women in the UK now choose to become mothers beyond the age of 35 and this test could be vital for those wanting to delay motherhood but who do not want to miss their chance of becoming a mum.

The test, which is not yet available on the NHS, can also be useful to women wanting to know when they are likely to start the menopause. And it can help couples assess how likely they are to succeed at IVF because the higher the level of AMH the better quality the mother's eggs are likely to be.

'Experts now agree that AMH is one of the most accurate measures of a woman's fertility,' says Dr Ellis Downes, consultant gynaecologist and chief executive of GynaeCheck, who supply the test.

'Similar tests already available tend to check for levels of oestrogen but as these fluctuate when a woman becomes menopausal it will not be as accurate as the AMH test.'

The test kit can be ordered over the internet, but unlike similar tests available can be done at any stage in a women's cycle. The sample is then sent to a laboratory.

The results will be delivered within five days and come in a traffic light form. Green means the woman's

AMH levels are normal and that provided she has no other health issues she should have no problem conceiving for the next 12 months at least.

Amber means that levels of AMH are starting to fall and she may have problems conceiving if she delays for more than a year and red means that the levels of AMH are very low and that she may be menopausal.

The test can also be used as a marker for polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal condition.

¦ TAKING the contraceptive Pill may lower the risk of some cancers.

Researchers who have monitored more than 17,000 women for over 30 years have found that taking the Pill may protect against cancers of the womb and ovaries. The Oxford University researchers found that the protective effects were sustained up to 20 years after women stopped taking the Pill.

Analysis of the 844 cases of breast cancer among the women shows that the risk was about the same for Pill users and non-users. But the chances of pill users developing uterine or ovarian cancer were one tenth those of non-users.

'Beneficial effects for oral contraceptives on the gynaecological cancers outweighed adverse effects,' say the researchers, even though Pill users of more than eight years were found to be six times more likely to develop cervical cancer.

¦ THE anti-Mullerian hormone test is available from www.canigetpreg-nant.co.uk for £145 (£80 for members of the female healthcare company GynaeCheck) or call 01707 877889 for more details.

Frozen mice 'have healthy pups'

2006-08-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Mice kept in the deep freeze for 15 years have fathered healthy offspring, say scientists in Japan and Hawaii.

One in five female mice undergoing IVF with sperm extracted from the dead mice had healthy, fertile pups.

It offers hope to those trying to bring extinct animals back from the dead, they report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One idea would be to inject frozen mammoth sperm recovered from the ice into the eggs of female elephants.

The researchers wrote: "If spermatozoa of extinct mammalian species (eg woolly mammoths) can be retrieved from animal bodies that were kept frozen for millions of years in permanent frost, live animals might be restored by injecting them into oocytes from females of closely related species."

Ice Age

The team, led by Atsuo Ogura of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research Bioresource Center in Tsukuba, Japan, harvested sperm from intact testes and, in some cases, the entire mouse, of specimens stored at -20C for up to 15 years.

They did not use hi-tech cryo-protection techniques, simply storing whole testes or bodies in a freezer.

The sperm appeared lifeless when thawed out but researchers were surprised to find that they produced viable offspring.

However, the chances of being able to recreate a woolly mammoth - or at least, an elephant with a woolly mammoth father, are thought to be slim.

Any mammoth recovered from the permafrost would have spent more than 10,000 years in a frozen state.

It would also have been frozen relatively slowly, making it liable to damage from bacteria and other micro-organisms.

Women Crave Support Through IVF Treatment: New Book Jumps to Top of Amazon Rankings

2006-08-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

“Nurturing Yourself Through IVF” captures the attention of in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients within 48 hours of being released. (FVNEWSWIRE Jul 7, 2006)

Brampton, ON (FV Newswire) - Within 48 hours of being released on July 1, “Nurturing Yourself Through IVF: Improve Your Experience, Maximize Your Odds of Success” achieved a top-two ranking within a category search for “IVF” on Amazon.com.

Author Lynn Daley is closely familiar with the toll that infertility can take. She believes that the response to the book demonstrates how difficult it can be to get through an IVF cycle.

“Women crave information that can help them feel better; in the case of IVF, they also want to know what can be done to improve their odds of success.”

Daley considers herself an ‘IVF veteran,’ having been through four years of fertility testing and treatment, including two fresh and two frozen IVF cycles. Through her own experience, Daley conducted extensive research (considering both traditional and alternative therapies) and met with more than one hundred women going through IVF.

Because IVF is a medical procedure, it is easy for patients to fall into a clinical mindset. With their lives governed by clinic appointments, drug schedules and lab results, many women find themselves preoccupied with the related numbers, statistics and facts.

As they balance their medical lives with work schedules and social commitments, it can be easy to put aside their own needs. As a result, many women focus on simply ‘getting through’ a cycle, rather than making their emotional health a priority.

“Nurturing Yourself Through IVF” now joins a handful of IVF-specific resources to help women put themselves first through this difficult time. The book draws on the principles of the mind-body connection and directs readers to a wide range of valuable resources.

“A handbook, a companion, a reminder that you are not alone in this, Lynn Daley brings her hard earned compassion to help others take out the suffering in this trying journey toward parenthood.” - Randine Lewis, PhD, author of “The Infertility Cure”

“Nurturing Yourself Through IVF” is available through www.nurturingthroughivf.com, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters/Indigo and through bookstores nationwide.

For more information about this book, to receive a review copy or to contact author Lynn Daley, please visit www.nurturingthroughivf.com.

Stop scaring older mums

2006-08-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

When I entered my forties, I was worried sick that I wouldn't be able to have children. And when I had my first, at 41, I was equally anxious that she would be an only child. I wouldn't wish that stress and worry on any other woman.

I realise that I am incredibly lucky to have had two such beautiful, healthy children - Molly Mae, almost two, and 10-month-old Danny - at an age when successful conception and birth are undoubtedly harder to achieve. But still, it makes me sad how little of their adulthood I'm going to see. It is by no means ideal to start a family as late as I have.

Yesterday, Dr Susan Bewley of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital described middle-aged mothers as more of a burden to society than teenage mums. Women who delay having children until they are 35 or over constitute a "major public health issue", she said, citing the added cost to the NHS of IVF attempts, miscarriages and premature births - all more likely in older women than their younger sisters. I know the women, these "selfish" older mothers, that Dr Bewley is talking about. She is talking about my friends and I.

Yet, no matter how much I wish that I had met my husband, Jason McCue, a lawyer and the father of my children, at the age of 30 or 34, the fact of the matter is, I did not.

Short of going to a sperm bank, or ending up having a child with someone with whom I had no long-term future, I therefore had no options.

This, of course, is the case for most modern women. Having a child is the most all-consuming thing you can possibly do, and most women really do want to do it with a partner. Yet most of the men I met in my twenties and thirties - and they were by no means exceptional - simply weren't ready to have a long-term, committed relationship, let alone settle down and have kids.

Are we being told, then, that it is better to have a child earlier, with someone unlikely to stick around? I get so angry about these mixed messages. On the one hand we are told that children need a stable family and two parents, and on the other we are continually harangued by people like Dr Bewley for waiting until we have got to a stage where we are more likely to have just that stability.

Surveys show that 34 per cent of women cite the absence of the right bloke as the prime reason for not having children until they are over 35. When it comes to my immediate circle of friends, you can up that figure to 90 per cent.

What truly irritates me about the people who lecture women on their fertility and age is the fact that they apparently watch the world radically change around them, but still hang on to pre-war sensibilities.

If a woman goes out in her twenties looking, with deadly seriousness, for potential father material, she'll be very much on her own. Society no longer expects women to flee the parental nest and almost immediately feather one of their own, and a good thing, too. The boys aren't thinking about starting families in their twenties and neither, to a large extent, are the girls.

Of course, there's another factor at work here, too. For most women, as soon as you have children, your career comes to a standstill at best, or simply goes into reverse. What astonishes me, mind you, is the instant assumption, and continual assertion, that this country is made up of women who are out there burning with ambition, and who are determined not to let anything thwart that ambition (certainly not the arrival of children).

These are the mythical women who, it seems, set out cynically to take advantage of NHS maternity services once they are into their forties and have forged these amazing careers. So - how many women like that do you know?

The truth is much simpler. In order to support children, or even a mortgage, most families find that both parents need to work. Women have to be concerned with making a living. Again, we have no choice. It's hardly "selfish", having worked damn hard for, say, 10 years, to then want to sustain that career rather than watch it crumble at the first sign of a pregnancy bump.

Yes, we have to live in the real world. Many of my friends who ended up having kids in their late thirties or forties did throw caution to the wind in terms of their careers. They knew that time was running out and they couldn't wait any longer for the right moment to take a break.

I remember thinking something like that myself. If having children was going to have a dramatic and negative impact on my career - as a TV arts presenter and Radio 4 journalist - then, you know what, so be it.

If you're a realist, you know it's going to happen - and to an extent, I found that it did. I had a producer on a programme tell me, for example, that my breastfeeding was " inconvenient".

I couldn't go off and film for 12 hours a day, you see, because I had to go home and feed my daughter at certain intervals. And that's working in television, a fairly flexible environment where you'd hope views might be slightly more enlightened. You can imagine the argument we had.

So, of course, it's not women who have to change their behaviour, but the whole of society. If we could guarantee a career break for babies without penalty, then that would be wonderful. At the moment it just doesn't happen.

In my view, it's opinions like those of Dr Bewley that really highlight the lack of understanding of how modern women live. She has said before that women "defy nature" by delaying conception and then relying upon IVF, yet science is defying nature in every way and for incredibly beneficial purposes. Do we not defy nature when we conquer inherited genetic conditions or disease? Advances in science are there to be taken advantage of.

And when she now says that "middle-aged" motherhood costs the NHS more than do teenage mums, well, what's the NHS for? Surely it, too, has to change with society. There are no statistics to back up her argument, since no one seems to know how much "delaying" motherhood actually does cost the NHS.

I would love to see the figures. I would also like to compare them with the costs incurred by 17-year-old mums who, having had a baby so young, find it hard to get a job or start a career, and are thus reliant on other state agencies. Frankly, it's deeply irresponsible to compare older mums with teenage mums on any level at all.

So, let's stop finger-pointing, blaming, and scaring the wits out of older women. By the time you get to your mid-thirties, and in some cases only then, you have at least some idea of what life requires of you. You have matured, and you have far more to offer a tiny human being who is just taking its first steps.

Dr Bewley needs to ask more, much broader, questions, since, if she's not going to find us all the right men at the "ideal" time, she - and the media outlets who interpret her views with such glee - can lecture women until they are blue in the face.

The fact is, we won't be listening.

Keep religion out of stem cell debate

2006-08-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Melbourne, Bob Williamson responds to cabinet's decision to uphold the ban on therapeutic cloning, stopping scientists harvesting embryos to produce stem cells

The Australian Government set up the Lockhart Committee, which was composed of independent experts in law, ethics, religion, medicine and science. They took evidence from hundreds of people and organisations. They weighed the evidence for months, and presented a unanimous report to Government that argues for continuing a strong ban on cloning, but for allowing somatic cell nuclear transfer in the laboratory.

It seems that one of the reasons why the Government is not agreeing to support the Lockhart Committee recommendations is because of the religious beliefs of some members of the Cabinet. We live in a country built by people with many beliefs, and it seems strange that one set of views, followed by a minority even of those who are religious, should have so much impact. While I respect everyone's right to a view on this matter, the value of the research to persons suffering serious illness and handicap is the key issue for Australia. I don't believe that a majority of people in our country want to see our medical research agenda set by religious leaders, rather than by doctors and scientists and patients.

The Australian Academy of Science is one of the many organisations that gave evidence in support of this stance, because on balance we think that there are some scientific questions that can be best answered using this laboratory technique. With Lockhart, we believe that strict legal regulation can maintain the division between what is ethically acceptable because it could lead to dramatic medical progress, and what is totally unacceptable, such as cloning people.

This is now agreed policy in most advanced scientific nations, including the US and the UK, which are actively recruiting our stem cell scientists. During the past few months, two leading Australian scientists, Professors Martin Pera and Paul Simmons, have moved to the United States, in part because of the very restrictive regulatory environment in Australia. To preserve Australia's scientific endeavours in stem cell science, the Commonwealth Government should accept the recommendations of the Lockhart report.

Stem cell therapy is exciting because many diseases are caused when cells either go out of control or die. In cancer patients, cells divide when they shouldn't, while in Alzheimer disease cells in the brain die off prematurely. Cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease affecting young people, has cells that don't move salt around appropriately. One objective of researchers is to use stem cells to treat diseases, as has been done for leukaemia and other blood diseases for many years. Another is to use stem cells to understand why some of these diseases develop, to use either pharmaceutical or lifestyle approaches to reduce their incidence.

Embryo-derived stem cells can make any tissue in the body, and grow forever. However, they are not yet known to be safe for therapy. Isolating them involves destroying "spare" IVF embryos, which is allowed in Australia as in most countries. "Adult" stem cells (which can come from babies, or even a foetus, but are not from early embryos) are safe to use, but tend to form more of the tissue from which they are obtained, and are less flexible.

"Therapeutic cloning" involves transferring the DNA from the cell of an adult (or child) into an egg from which the DNA has been removed, and growing up cells in the lab which are (more or less) between embryonic and adult stem cells in properties. Therapeutic cloning would be particularly valuable for studying diseases we don't understand because the cell doesn't work properly and dies before the patient becomes ill (as for insulin-dependent diabetes of children, and motor neurone disease).

Professor Bob Williamson, who also acts as Chair of the National Committee for Medicine of the Australian Academy of Science, is currently heading a research group that's trying to develop cell therapy for cystic fibrosis using adult stem cells.

Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI) Offers Free Cycle of IVF Treatment Through Participation in Study of Longer-Lasting Ovary Stimulation Drug

2006-08-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

GLENVIEW, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2006--Fertility Centers of Illinois will offer a free cycle of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) including all medications to as many as 70 patients through its participation in a clinical trial of a new long-lasting drug for ovarian stimulation. Experts are hopeful that this new drug will replace the need for daily injections for patients going through ovulation induction and IVF. FCI performs more than 2,500 IVF cycles each year.

The new drug will enable patients to receive a single injection that will last for seven days versus one injection daily. This modified drug which is a long-lasting recombinant FSH, has already been used in Europe with great success. Before the drug is approved for use in the United States, the Federal Drug and Administration (FDA) requires that a Phase III study be completed for general use among fertility patients. The study will investigate the efficacy of a long-lasting single injection of recombinant FSH to induce multiple follicles for ovarian stimulation in an IVF cycle, compared to daily recombinant FSH.

"FCI is excited about participating in this study as it will give us the opportunity to test the new drug and receive direct feedback from our IVF patients," says Meike Uhler, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist with Fertility Centers of Illinois. "This study will also allow us to offer a free IVF cycle and medications, making it more affordable for patients to have the treatment." According to Dr. Uhler the average IVF cycle can cost up to $15,000.

IVF patients who meet certain criteria will need to be seen for an initial consultation by an FCI physician at one of their nine satellite offices. If accepted into the study, all monitoring during the IVF cycle must be done at FCI's River North IVF Center.

FCI cannot deviate from the following strict criteria for inclusion and exclusion in the study, which have been established by the pharmaceutical company.

Patients who will be considered as candidates for the study needs to:

-- Have an indication for IVF/ICSI

-- Be 18 - 36 years of age at the time of signing the informed consent form

-- Have a body weight of 132 lb - 198 lb and BMI of 18 - 29

-- Have normal menstrual cycle length of 24 - 35 days

-- Have ejaculatory sperm (donor semen and/or cryopreserved semen is allowed)

Patients who have the following conditions will not be considered as candidates for the study:

-- History of any endocrine abnormality other than ovulatory dysfunction

-- History of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome

-- History of PCOS

-- Antral Follicle Count greater than 20 follicles less than 11mm (both ovaries combined, measured in menstrual cycle day 2 - 5)

-- Less than 2 ovaries or any ovarian abnormality (including endometrioma greater than 10mm)

-- Presence of hydrosalpinx

-- Presence of clinically relevant pathology of the uterine cavity or fibroids greater than or equal to 5cm

-- More than 3 unsuccessful IVF cycles or recurrent miscarriage since the last established ongoing pregnancy (if applicable)

-- History of poor response to Controlled Ovarian Hyper Stimulation (COHS)

-- FSH or LH greater than 12IU/L as measured by local lab (sample taken menstrual cycle day 2 - 5)

-- Any clinically relevant abnormal lab value based on a sample taken during the screening phase

-- Recent history of epilepsy, HIV, diabetes, cardiovascular, GI, hepatic, renal or pulmonary disease

-- Abnormal karyotype of patient or partner (if performed)

-- Smoking more than 5 cigarettes day

-- History of substance abuse within 12 months prior to signing informed consent

-- Use of hormonal preparations within 1 month prior to randomization (patients may not take OCP's in cycle prior to stimulation cycle)

-- Hypersensitivity to any of the concomitant medication prescribed as part of the treatment regimen of this protocol

-- Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)

Candidates interested in applying for the study should call FCI at 1.847.998.8200 and ask for Dr. Aaron Lifchez, Principal Investigator. Candidates will then be contacted by FCI.

About Fertility Centers of Illinois

Fertility Centers of Illinois, S.C., is one of the nation's leading infertility treatment practices, providing advanced reproductive endocrinology services in the Chicago area for over 25 years. FCI performs more IVF than the next nine clinics combined, over 2,500 cycles per year. FCI has more babies born than the next ten centers combined with high success rates that are recognized throughout the nation. In addition to a team of nationally recognized reproductive physicians who collaborate with each other to stay current on the latest technology and procedures, FCI patients have access to many other unique support services such as professional counseling from a licensed, Ph.D. clinical psychologist, patient advocates and innovative financial options. FCI's multiple offices are conveniently located throughout the Chicago area. FCI is part of IntegraMed, the nation's largest and most reputable network of fertility centers. With nearly 160 fertility specialists and scientists in 87 locations across the US, IntegraMed practices have collectively done more research in the field of reproductive medicine and treated more patients than any other physician consortium.

Contacts

Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI)
Nadine Sudnick, 630-231-7649
nadinesudnick@aol.com

Linda Evangelista's IVF baby?

2006-07-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Linda Evangelista is being dogged by claims she got pregnant via artificial insemination.

The single supermodel - who is due to give birth later this year - has so far refused to reveal the identity of her baby's father.

When confronted with the claims, her agent at DNA models, Didier Fernandez, told America's New York Post newspaper: "No comment - I am speechless at your question."

Last month, the Canadian-born beauty revealed how delighted she was to be expecting.

She said: "I'm not freaked out at all. I embrace it. I believe I'm doing everything to go through this as smoothly as possible. I'm either doing yoga or exercising every day."

Read more at Linda Evangelista's IVF baby?

Cloning's egg donors get cheap IVF

2006-07-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

WOMEN undergoing IVF treatment will be able to cut thousands of dollars from the cost by donating some of their eggs for cloning research, after the practice was approved in Britain for the first time.

The scheme will be available at the fertility clinic that created Britain's first cloned human embryo. It was approved by the fertility regulator yesterday, even though the regulator itself begins a public consultation on the ethics of egg donation for research in September.

The licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority means that patients at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life will in effect be paid in kind for their eggs. Up to half their treatment costs will be covered by a scientific team investigating stem cells if they agree to give up 50 per cent of the eggs they produce for use in experiments.

The researchers, from the North East England Stem Cell Institute, hope to collect eggs from one woman a week, providing a reliable source of the fresh eggs that are needed to create cloned embryos. Research into therapeutic cloning, which aims to develop embryonic stem cell treatments for conditions such as Parkinson's disease and diabetes, has been hampered by a shortage of suitable eggs.

Read more at: Cloning's egg donors get cheap IVF

IVF patients 'afraid to tell the boss'

2006-06-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

Nearly two thirds of those undergoing IVF do not feel they can tell their employers they are having fertility treatment, according to a survey.

Research by Infertility Network UK, the main British charity for those with fertility problems, said 61 per cent of patients had kept their treatment secret.

They were worried about the consequences of their employer knowing they were trying for a baby.

Other reasons for not telling employers were worries about work colleagues finding out, concerns that employers would not be sympathetic and the general feeling that infertility was a private matter.

The amount of time patients took off for treatment varied considerably, from just one day to a few weeks, depending on their circumstances.

But most had taken fewer than 10 working days.

Patients had taken the time off in a variety of ways with 56 per cent taking it as sick leave, 47 per cent using annual holiday leave, 14 per cent taking unpaid leave and 20 per cent given paid leave by their employer for their treatment.

The results of the survey were published ahead of a major conference in London tomorrow to mark National Infertility Day.

Speakers include Dame Suzi Leather, the chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Dr Gillian Lockwood, a fertility specialist, and Emily Buchanan, the BBC World Affairs Correspondent who suffered three miscarriages and eventually adopted two girls.

Infertility Network UK points out that some employers recognise infertility as a medical condition, and allow their staff to take time off to have treatment.

Asda offers five days' paid leave with the option of extra unpaid leave. London and Quadrant Housing give staff unlimited time off for fertility treatment.

Infertility affects one in seven couples and in the UK alone about three and a half million people are suffering from some kind of fertility problem.

Experts say the emotional impact of infertility cannot be underestimated.

A study carried out for the National Infertility Awareness Campaign in 1997 questioned more than 900 patients about their experiences, and found 94 per cent had suffered depression and feelings of isolation.

There was also some stigma attached to infertility. Many couples were worried about their colleagues finding out that they were having difficulty conceiving.

About 72 per cent of patients had experienced feelings of inadequacy and 62 per cent felt guilt and shame about their condition. A spokesman for Infertility Network UK said: "It is common for couples to have concerns about telling their employers they are having fertility treatment, and there are many reasons for this.

"Couples undergoing fertility tests or any form of treatment will have to attend a fertility clinic.

"Investigations to discover the cause of the problem are often drawn out over many months or even years, and although some clinics try to arrange appointment times to suit their patients, many others can't do this.

"An employee may need to take some time off during their normal working hours to visit the clinic.

"If an employer can allow some degree of flexibility in the working day, this will not only make the whole process much easier but often has wider benefits for employee relations across the board."

The charity said an understanding employer could make all the difference to an employee during fertility treatment.

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What You Should Know About Infertility by Michael Russell

2006-05-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

From generation to generation infertility has been a condition that plagues couples worldwide. It is a condition that transcends race and color. Medically speaking, infertility is a disease of the reproductive system. A couple can be diagnosed with infertility if conception is not achieved after one year of unprotected and well timed sexual intercourse. Infertility could also be diagnosed if a woman had suffered several miscarriages (recurrent pregnancy loss).

Who is at Risk? What you should know about infertility is that, it is a major heartache and life crisis. It involves losses for both the individual and society at large. Being a medical situation, both male and female, husband and wife are at risk of infertility. The problems leading to infertility could predominantly be from one of the partners, in which case it is called either the male factor (if the problem is with the male) or the female factor (if the female reproductive system is diseased), or it could be a combination of problems with both partners. In some other cases, the cause could be rightly described as unexplained.

Infertility is therefore not a 'woman's problem' as is believed in some cultures. In fact, approximately 40% of cases of infertility are due to the male factor, 40% due to the female factor, while in the other cases it is either a combined factor or unexplained The cause of infertility is said to be unexplained, if after medical examination, nothing medically serious could be found to be wrong with either of the couple and they still cannot achieve conception after several efforts.

Generally, most physicians advise couples not to worry yet about infertility unless they fall into any of these categories:

- They are under 35 years old and have tried to conceive without success for over 12months.

- They are over 35 and have tried to conceive without success for over 6months

- They are over 30 and have a previous history of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), painful menstrual periods, recurrent pregnancy loss, irregular menstrual cycles or a partner suffers from low sperm count.

If you fall in any of these categories, it would be wise to consult your ob/gyn or an infertility specialist.

Can Infertility be Prevented? In every medical situation, prevention is tied to the knowledge of the underlying cause of the particular condition. In some cases, steps may be taken to prevent some types of infertility, especially with respect to some established risk factors i.e. factors that induce some types of infertility. Except in cases like this, infertility is in most cases, unpreventable. You will understand this better, if you remember that there are still several "unexplained" infertility problems. There isn't so much you can do to prevent what you do not know. Some of the known risk factors that may contribute to infertility include:

Weight problems Age Tubal diseases Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Endometriosis Smoking Alcohol

It is known that smoking and alcohol are very bad for fertility. Cutting down on caffeine would also do you a lot of good. Fertility and healthy pregnancy (when it does occur) requires you to maintain a healthy body and the best physical shape possible.

Treatment Options - A variety of medication and options exist for tackling infertility. As with other medical conditions, it is always better to research your options, understand the medication involved and its purpose. With more knowledge, you can better discuss with your physician the setting up of aspecific treatment plan that addresses your particular problem.

Treatment options available for infertility include, ovulation inducers, artificial insemination, invitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy and surgery (in some cases).

Always remember that infertility has no major signs or symptoms associated with it. Paying attention to your body and getting regular checkups will be vital for your fertility.

Controversy continues over prayer, IVF study

2006-05-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

A prominent reproductive health researcher has removed his name from the list of authors of a study on prayer and in vitro fertilization published in 2001, but the controversy over the study continues.

The study "Does Prayer Influence the Success of In Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer?" was published in the September 2001 issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine (J. Reprod. Med. 2001;46:781-7). The authors studied the use of prayer on 219 Korean women who underwent IVF over a 4-month period. The pregnancy rate was nearly twice as high in the women who had been prayed for, compared with those who had not been prayed for (50% vs. 26%), a statistically significant difference.

The study was removed from the Web site nearly 3 years later after the journal received a number of letters and e-mails critical of the research. The journal's editor-in-chief, Lawrence Devoe, M.D., said the study was removed from the Web site because it generated more traffic than the office could handle. Critics of the study questioned its methodology--involving several "tiers" of people, some praying for the study subjects and others praying for those doing the praying--as well as the fact that no informed consent was obtained.

The study recently was returned to the Web site, and the journal also published a defense of the work by one of its authors, Kwang Y. Cha, M.D. (J. Reprod. Med. 2004;49:944-5).

World-first IVF embryo test

2006-05-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

A BRISBANE couple is set to give birth to a designer baby hand-picked from a test tube as part of a world-first IVF test.

The test, developed for Brisbane's City Fertility Centre, is set to revolutionise the booming IVF industry by allowing couples to select disease-free embryos.

They will also be able to pick the gender, and safeguard against lab mix-ups by providing a DNA swab to match with the embryos.

The test, available nationally from July 1, involves taking a single cell from a three-day-old embryo and screening it for chromosome abnormalities which can lead to miscarriage and diseases, including cystic fibrosis and Down, Edwards and Patau syndromes.

The molecular technology, known as MF-PCR or multiplex fluorescent polymerase chain reaction, will cut down the time it takes to scan embryos for abnormalities to just a few hours.

The $500 test is also predicted to slash the cost of IVF treatments from up to $20,000 each.

CFC medical director Glenn Sterling said the test wasn't about producing "designer babies": ""We are examining embryos, not interfering with the genetic make-up. So many women go through IVF and they don't get pregnant, miscarry, or have a baby with major complications, and now they can go, 'Let's get pregnant the first time and not go through the heartache'."

The test took Griffith University's Prof Ian Findlay and scientists from South Australia-based company Gribble Molecular Science eight years to develop.

New freezing technology for stem cells and IVF

2006-05-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

The nitrogen-free freezer is the first piece of controlled rate equipment which does not use liquid nitrogen to freeze cells used in IVF. A study reporting a good survival of human embryonic stem cells, mouse embryos and human sperm frozen in Asymptote's freezer has been accepted for publication in the journal Reproductive Bio Medicine Online. Conventional controlled rate freezers are cooled by liquid nitrogen.

But these are inconvenient to use and puts samples at risk of contamination from liquid nitrogen-borne bacteria.

Laboratories which operate under sterile conditions, or require high air quality, should avoid the use of liquid nitrogen freezers, for example laboratories freezing cells for use in cell therapy.

Asymptote has taken technology from aerospace and military applications and used it in its freezer.

The Stirling Cycle engine is a compact electrically powered cooler that can reach temperatures of -100C, low enough to cryopreserve cells.

This unique technology removes any risk of contamination to samples and means the freezer can be used in cleanrooms.

'A lot of people don't realise that bacteria and debris material are found in liquid nitrogen,' says Asymptote's director John Morris.

'Liquid nitrogen freezers can potentially contaminate samples and shouldn't be used in cleanrooms'.

'The nitrogen-free freezer can'.

Although alternative refrigeration methods are available, such as Peltier modules and mechanical compressors, they either lack the cooling ability or are too large and cumbersome to be suitable for use in laboratory scale cryopreservation equipment.

The freezer is small and simple to operate.

It does not have the problems associated with storing and handling liquid nitrogen, and the running cost of the nitrogen-free freezer is estimated to be just 1% of a liquid nitrogen freezer.

Studies are also being carried out on horse sperm and have shown the freezer's ability to freeze larger volumes of cell suspensions in bags.

The freezer can be used either in the laboratory or as a portable device powered from a car battery.

This makes it ideal for veterinary and conservation work where the need for large amounts of liquid nitrogen has previously hindered collections and experiments in the field.

Asymptote is a specialist in controlled solidification research and product development, based in Cambridge, UK.

Its products and process technology have resulted in significant advances in disciplines ranging from human and veterinary IVF to the food and pharmaceutical industries.

From A to Z: Two Vital Nutrients for Enhancing Your Fertility

2006-05-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

by Kristen Hart

Did you know that there is one nutrient that researchers have studied continuously because it impacts fertility in both males and females? Did you know that this nutrient has been found in high levels in foods used by traditional cultures to enhance fertility? This amazing nutrient is zinc.

Those native foods high in zinc are also high in another nutrient, and science is just beginning to recognize the important part that this nutrient plays in fertility. Zinc's partner nutrient is vitamin A.

Zinc has been shown to be vital to sperm health and thus vital to male fertility. If a man's zinc levels are low often his sperm levels are also low. Healthy sperm are important not just for fertility, but for the health of your future baby.

Chromosomal changes can occur with low zinc, which can increase your risk of miscarriage and negatively impact your future child. Zinc also helps your body to synthesize and use the hormones you need to get and stay pregnant.

Traditional cultures have always valued foods high in vitamin A -- and indeed, vitamin A rich foods enhance fertility and help ensure newborn health. Taking vitamin A in large quantities during pregnancy is not safe. However, researchers have found that natural vitamin A is vital for conception and for healthy fetal development.

So, how do you get zinc and vitamin A in safe, effective ways? The best way is through foods. You body absorbs nutrients in food much better than it does from pills. And food is a much more pleasant way to enhance your fertility!

Cultures in ages past fed women and men special diets in the months leading up to conception. Shellfish were often part of these diets and we know today that shellfish are high in zinc. In fact, fish were a large part of these diets. Fish oils have natural vitamin A in them - you can take a teaspoon of cod liver oil daily to get the same benefits that these cultures enjoyed.

Other cultures depended on cattle for their nutrients. Beef, butter, cheese, and milk are rich sources of zinc and vitamin A. Butter from healthy pasture-fed cows contains vitamin A and many trace minerals - and no dangerous trans-fats. Recent studies have shown that women who drink milk daily during pregnancy have healthier, higher birth weight babies and are less likely to deliver prematurely. Milk is rich in many vitamins and minerals, as well as protein.

Many seeds and bean are rich sources of zinc. Chickpeas and tahini, a butter made from chickpeas, have been enjoyed for centuries and are especially high in zinc. Carrots and leafy greens are good sources of beta-carotene, which your body turns into vitamin A.

Enjoy a varied diet with emphasis on fresh, whole foods. Pay special attention to adding milk or milk products, leafy greens, and shellfish into your diet. Take a teaspoon (or caplet) of cod liver oil daily. Adding these foods will increase the zinc and vitamin A in your diet and in your partner's diet. Your reward will be greater health and greater fertility!
About the Author

Kristen H. is the owner of http://www.getting-pregnant.com Her site offers an email newsletter series full of information on how to get pregnant naturally. It includes tips on diet, supplements, even how your nightlight affects your fertility!

Fertility and Artificial Light

2006-05-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

Artificial light while sleeping appears to interfere with the production of melatonin, which is a hormone associated with ovarian activity. Research shows that women's cycles often normalize when artificial light is eliminated while sleeping. Eliminating the artificial light seems to allow the hormonal system to reset itself, so to speak, and take a fresh start. Couples who were thought to be infertile have been able to conceive by eliminating artificial light while sleeping.

Many women find that menstrual cycles are easier and more harmonious if they follow the cycles of the moon: menstruation on the new moon, ovulation on the full moon. Because we are surrounded by so much artificial light, even while sleeping, it can be a challenge to get in tune with the moon's cycles. Women report being able to gradually harmonize their cycles with the cycles of the moon by sleeping in total darkness, except for one or two nights at the time of the full moon. If you want to try sleeping in total darkness, make some dark shades for your bedroom windows and make sure there is no light of any kind from your clock radio, from under your door, etc.

If you want to try harmonizing your cycle with the moon's cycles, open your shades for one night during the full moon, and sleep in the moon's light. If this is not possible, get a nightlight and use it only during the night of the full moon. You may have to continue this practice for some months, so be patient. You may enjoy seeing your cycles gradually respond to Grandmother Moon's light.

About The Author

Marie Zenack is a teacher of fertility awareness and a facilitator of women's rites of passage.

http://www.menstrual-cycle-period.com/

Teacher Fired For IVF Treatment

2006-05-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Contributor

Milwaukee, WI (AHN) - Kelly Romenesko, a French teacher at two Roman Catholic schools in Appleton, was fired when she and her husband decided to start a family using in vitro fertilization.

The Catholic School system claimed that Romenesko violated a provision of her employment contract saying a teacher has to act in accordance with Catholic doctrine which holds IVF as morally wrong as it replaces the "natural" conjugal union between husband and wife and often results in destruction of embryos.

Though couple used their own eggs and sperm and none of the embryos were destroyed in the process, the church forbids such donations and condemns all forms of experimentation on human embryos, said her lawyer James C. Jones.

Romenesko, 37, has filed a discrimination complaint against Appleton Catholic Educational System, Inc./Xavier, which runs seven Catholic schools in Appleton.

Teacher Fired for IVF Treatment “Had no idea” the Catholic Church was Opposed

2006-05-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

by Hilary White

APPLETON, Wis. May 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Wisconsin woman has been fired from her teaching position by a Catholic elementary school because she underwent in vitro fertilisation treatments in order to obtain her two daughters. Kelly Romenesko told the PostCresent.com news outlet that she had no idea that the Church was against in vitro even though she is a life-long Catholic and was told that if she underwent IVF it would violate her contract stipulation that teachers must adhere to Catholic principles.

Romenesko’s teaching contract stipulated that she uphold and act and teach in accordance with Catholic doctrine.

Catholic pro-life activists have long complained that the greatest obstacle to their fight is the Church itself whose pastors rarely speak from the pulpit even about abortion and contraception. The Church’s prohibitions against artificial procreation are among its least known teachings.

"I kind of thought that (the contract terms) meant to follow the Ten Commandments, that kind of thing," Romenesko, 37, said.

The Catholic prohibition against artificially assisted procreation extrapolates naturally from previous teaching, but was spelled out in 1986 in the landmark document, “Donum Vitae” or “The Gift of Life.” In it, then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that in vitro fertilisation “Entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person.”

The Catholic Church teaches that, even if the procedure did not, as it invariably does, involve the death of many children created in the lab, it would violate the natural and moral law by making the child into a commodity that can be treated as property.

Canadian law regards unwanted embryos left over from IVF procedures as suitable “material” for medical experimentation.

Romenesko’s principal informed her that undergoing IVF would violate the terms of her contract and when she went ahead the ACES/Xavier school system fired her.

“I was astounded. I was shocked. I was crying. I couldn't believe it, and I said, 'Is this the only reason I am being fired', and they said yes.”

The law in Wisconsin recognizes that a fundamental reason for establishing Catholic parochial schools is to promote and cultivate specific religious beliefs and so the ACES/Xavier system is not open to a lawsuit.

Romenesko filed a complaint with the state Department of Workforce Development saying she was fired because she became pregnant, but an investigator found no probable cause that ACES broke the law.

Folic acid boosts IVF multiple births

2006-05-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Adding folic acid to bread flour could lead to more women giving birth to twins after IVF treatment.

Pregnant women are advised to take the natural form of vitamin B to avoid neural tube abnormalities such as spina bifida.

In the UK, it is recommended that women take 400 micrograms a day up to week 12 of pregnancy.

But scientists from Aberdeen University have warned if the Government decide to fortify bread with folic acid this could lead to multiple births for women receiving in-vitro fertilisation treatment.

Multiple births are associated with a range of birth defects, including blindness and cerebral palsy, and often predict poor survival.

A study of 602 women undergoing IVF treatment showed that, when more than one embryo was transferred to the womb, the risk of having twins rose with increased folate intake.

However there was no association between folate levels and the likelihood of a successful pregnancy.

The researchers said flour fortification could result in 600 extra women a year having twins after IVF or ICSI treatment which involves injecting a single sperm into the egg.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed that it was considering advice to ministers on dietary folate, including the fortification of flour.

Brits warned against foreign IVF treatment

2006-05-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

British couples considering going abroad for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other types of fertility treatment have been warned against the practice.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which monitors fertility clinics in England and Wales, people who choose to have their treatment abroad should understand the potential risks and implications before booking an IVF holiday.

The HFEA says standards in many countries do not match those in the UK and patients should consider what happens if something goes wrong, whether their information is kept confidential, the legal position of donors of eggs or sperm and how they are recruited, screened and compensated.

Tales of foreign clinics offering treatments to patients that could be dangerous, such as implanting two or more embryos can increase the chances of having a multiple birth which can be dangerous for the mother and the babies.

Infertility Network UK, a support organisation, has supported the HFEA's warning but says patients are being forced to travel abroad because they cannot access the treatment they need in Britain due to a shortage of egg and sperm donors.

This has led to unacceptably long waiting lists in some areas and some clinics have closed their waiting lists.

As many as one in six couples worldwide has infertility problems and fertility treatment is a multi-billion dollar global industry.

Medicine gives life a helping hand

2006-05-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

By JOHN CRAWFORD

Special to The Times

Every year, IVF New Jersey would hold a holiday party to which the infertility practice invited former patients. It was a warm occasion. Not only would the patients' children be there -- children brought into the world through the help of the practice -- but the party also demonstrated the closeness that can develop between infertility clinicians and their patients.

IVF New Jersey assists with a momentous and happy time in people's lives, a fact that cements an intimacy between doctor and patient.

"Most doctors don't have that bond with patients," says Dr. Susan L. Treiser, a reproductive endocrinologist and co-director of the infertility practice, which has offices in Somerset, Lawrenceville and Freehold. "It makes it special."

The practice's most successful treatment is in vitro fertilization. Legal and moral issues may surround the unused embryos created through IVF, but the procedure can bring joyous results to patients' lives by literally giving the miracle of life a helping hand. "It is a miracle of life, and in some way, we have a hand in creating that," Treiser says.

On the flip side, the intricate and involved undertaking can also cause lots of stress for those going through it. Patients have frequent and draining visits, and they can be wrung through an emotional roller coaster, going from hopeful to anxious as they wait for results, then to devastated if they don't become pregnant.

The staff does their best to support patients, and if necessary, the practice has psychologists it can refer patients to, Treiser says. "Emotionally and psychologically, it's very difficult. There is no guarantee of success."

Given that the procedure costs about $10,000, patients also may face considerable financial strain if they're paying out of pocket. New Jersey does have legislation requiring the reimbursement of infertility treatment if a business has 50 or more employees.

In a nutshell, the IVF process starts with the patient taking medication to stimulate her ovaries to produce multiple eggs. During a women's normal cycle, only one egg is released, but the medication will increase that number to between 10 to 20.

In a minor medical procedure, the women's eggs are extracted and combined with a man's sperm. About 75 percent of the eggs will be fertilized, and the majority of these will divide into two or more cells to become embryos.

The progress of the embryos is evaluated as they continue to grow and divide in culture for three to five days. Ideally, if enough high-quality embryos are still viable after three days, they will be allowed to grow for an extra two days. Embryos that are 5 days old are known as blastocysts, and because they're more advanced, they have a better chance of conception.

After the embryos are transferred to the women's uterus, patients wait a suspenseful two weeks to see if they're pregnant. Overall, IVF New Jersey has an average success rate of 50 percent with IVF, but that average tumbles in older women. If using her own eggs, a woman over the age of 43 has a less than 2 percent chance of getting pregnant.

For that reason, IVF New Jersey discourages the procedure in older women, though the practice will allow patients up to the age of 50 to undergo IVF if they're using donated eggs from a younger woman.

Typically, an IVF patient is in her mid-30s to early 40s. However, Treiser is seeing more women in their younger 30s, even 20s, using the procedure. "Women are more savvy," she says. "There is greater awareness of women's biological clocks. There is increasing awareness of reproductive potential."

Treiser recommends women under 35 look into infertility treatment if they've tried to get pregnant for a year. Women 35 and older should seek treatment if they've tried for six months. "You don't want to lose your window of opportunity," she said.

Banking on science for future fertility

2006-04-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

From the moment a baby girl is born, her fertility clock begins the countdown. Though she has millions of eggs in her immature ovaries, by the time she's a woman, the viability of those eggs has already started to diminish.

By age 40, her chances of conceiving have declined, while her chances of having a child with chromosomal abnormalities have increased. And if she's like thousands of women in their 30s who have yet to meet Mr. Right and whose careers and personal choices don't include, for now, child rearing, she may find herself wishing that should could freeze time.

Actually, she may be able to. Although the procedure is still considered by many to be experimental, about 200 fertility centers around the country are using new technology to collect and freeze unfertilized eggs of women in their 30s for use in their 40s.

Until now, egg banking has been employed mostly by women about to undergo chemotherapy for cancer. What is new is who it is being marketed to: thirtysomethings who are postponing having families. They see it as a way to improve their odds of having healthy children.

For older women, fertility issues generally lie not with the uterus, but with the eggs.

"We can make the uterus do what we want it to do," said Dr. Mary Ramie Hinckley, a reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area. "Egg quality is the problem."

Even though a woman in her 40s is capable of conceiving, she stands a greater chance of complications and of having a child with health issues. As she ages, the risk of bearing a child with certain chromosomal disorders increases. A 25-year-old woman has a 1 in 1,250 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome; at age 45, the risk is 1 in 30.

But if a woman preserves and banks her eggs when she is 35, then those are available to her if she decides to have a child at 45.

Hinckley said her group has recently begun offering the procedure to women who want to safeguard their fertility.

"Sperm freezing has been around for decades," Hinckley said, "followed by high success rates with embryo preservation. Now we're having a much better success rate for freezing and thawing unfertilized eggs."

While egg banking has so far drawn none of the controversy and ethical dilemmas that preserving embryos has, the success rate with the eggs has been low, Hinckley said. Eggs, she said, can be fragile, and when frozen, they can shatter like a glass bottle left too long in the freezer.

The chance of taking a frozen egg, thawing it, fertilizing it and having a successful implantation has been only about 5 percent. But new techniques have improved that number, increasing the probability of conception to 20 percent.

The odds are still low, Hinckley said, but improving.

The numbers are too low for some. The official position of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology is that the procedure should be limited to women whose fertility is threatened by illness and disease.

"It's something that isn't really ready to be offered commercially," said society spokeswoman Eleanor Nicoll, "because the success rates for it still aren't very good. It's still under development, and a lot of work is still needed."

She said the society is concerned that women might place the future of their fertility on a procedure that may not work for them. They could be banking on a pregnancy that will never happen while overlooking the obvious: getting pregnant in the traditional way.

While Hinckley and others readily acknowledge that egg banking is not for everyone and that it still has relatively low rates of success, it can offer a measure of security and insurance for some.

Reproductive Science Center, which has offices in San Ramon, Orinda, Fremont and San Jose, Calif., sets an age limit on using banked eggs. Women must undergo the implantation procedure before their 51st birthday.

The cost of collecting eggs is an expensive one, Hinckley said. Women undergoing the procedure receive a daily injection for eight to 10 days to stimulate egg production. Then 10 to 15 eggs are extracted in an outpatient process. The price is $6,000.

The eggs are then frozen and shipped to a storage facility in Minnesota, said Kristin Ivani, a reproductive biologist who oversees the lab for the Reproductive Science Center. Cost of long-term storage is about $1 a day.

Should a woman later decide to use the eggs, there is another fee for thawing, fertilizing and implanting.

Egg banking is a natural progression of reproductive science, Hinckley and Ivani said.

"It's next new thing," Ivani said.

Male contraceptive pill should not damage male fertility

2006-04-30T10:40:00.001-07:00

Men who take a hormone-based contraceptive pill, which is thought to be about three to five years from hitting the market, can regain their full fertility in about four months after halting the treatment, a study has found.

A male hormonal contraceptive pill is in the works since drug companies are looking to give men a greater participation in f amily planning decisions. However, the problem of suppressed sperm production after taking such a male contraceptive pill has made men wary of using these preparations.

Additionally, these seemed to reduce s ex drive, something that no man wants to risk. Hence, the idea of a male Pill has received a lukewarm reception.

But the current study found that sperm production returns to near normal within three to four months after stopping this treatment. The lead author of the current study, Dr. Peter Y. Liu, of the Department of Andrology at Concord Hospital and ANZAC Research Institute of the University of Sydney, in Australia, admitted that an easily reversible method is an important requirement for any contraceptive.

He added that his team's findings, which appear in the April 29 issue of The Lancet, constitute "an important step in the development and widespread adoption of these methods."

According to researchers, androgen or androgen-progestin treatment works by suppressing sperm production. This means that sperm is either not produced at all in the semen or is produced in very low levels that are unlikely to lead to conception.

Sperm production falls to three million sperm per millilitre compared to a fertile level of 20 million that is generally accepted as a benchmark for conception. However, to ensure that this method is reversible, Dr Liu's team analyzed 30 studies on male hormonal contraceptives. The sperm levels were monitored every month in these studies until they reached normal levels.

The researchers reviewed data on 1,549 men and found that the average sperm recovery time was three to four months. Faster recovery rates were observed in older men, a shorter duration of treatment, in men of Asian origin and in men who had higher sperm concentrations before beginning the treatment.

The men were given progesterone, a fema1e hormone, as an injection that was repeated every three months. Progesterone plays an important role in inhibiting sperm production. A single sperm has a life span of 70 days and hence the injections must be taken at least three months before for maximal effectiveness.

In addition to progesterone, the male hormone, testosterone, is given as a sub-cutaneous implant. This implant is renewed every three months. Researchers speculate that the testosterone maintains an intact libido in men. It is reported that volunteers who tried this method out admitted to an increased libido.

"Men who use androgen-progestin male contraceptive methods can all expect that their sperm output will return back to levels consistent with normal fertility," Liu said. "This means that these hormonal methods are reversible."

A male contraceptive pill offered choices to men, said Dr. Christina Wang, co-author of the study, a professor of medicine at the General Clinical Research Center, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. "It will allow men to participate in family planning decisions and share fami1y planning responsibilities."

"We are developing possibilities for short-acting, medium-acting and long-acting male contraceptives," Wang added. "There will be pills, injections, patches and implants, just like in women. We now have important safety information and a roadmap for future studies of recovery. This is an important step in allowing men to share more fairly the satisfaction and burden of fami1y planning."

Currently, v asectomy and the use of c ondoms are the only contraceptive methods available to man. The withdrawal method or the coitus interruptus is also an effective method, but is rarely successful. Some couples find that con doms are not a good choice, while vasecto my is not reversible. Hence, these methods are not widely employed and contraception has largely remained a fe male domain.

Several large trials are being conducted on the subject of a male contraceptive Pill. A large phase III trial involving androgen treatment and another, which is looking at a combination of androgen-progestin, is currently under way in China and Europe.

The fe male Pill is a combination of progesterone and estrogen and works by suppressing ov ulation. This must be taken almost at the same time everyday. However, there are a lot of side effects like moodiness, weight gain and pigmentation reported with the Pill. Some wo men regain fertility almost immediately on stopping the pill, but generally a period of six to eight weeks is the observed recovery time.

Male fertility is funny business

2006-04-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

Male comics are revealing their most intimate details for good reason, writes Fiona Scott-Norman.

Audiences are used to comics mining their personal lives for material.

Drinking, shagging and humiliating stories from childhood are the mud and straw from which many a routine/adobe hut has been lovingly crafted. What sets a comic apart, however, and really engages a crowd, is the willingness to move beyond share-houses, dating and pulling bongs into truly intimate, emotionally charged, controversial territory.

Three performers this Melbourne International Comedy Festival have been prepared to put their most precious commodity - their, ahem, fertility - on the line, and the result is three very different shows that examine the issue from the male perspective.

Matt Black's Come With Me is a call for volunteers to donate semen to the Albury sperm bank. Damian Callinan's Spaznuts is an exploration of his own infertility. And Tasmanian Ben Payne's Duopoly of One looks at how enduring IVF, and then conceiving twins, impacted on his relationship.

It's the kind of stuff that traditionally makes men shuffle their feet nervously and start talking loudly about sport, but Callinan, who found out he was infertile shortly before his marriage ended, doesn't feel that revealing such personal material is a big deal. If anything, he seems relieved that a bright light is finally being directed at such a private part of his life.

"I'm just telling my own story, and I'm comfortable with that. Some friends came and said they loved the show, but found themselves wanting to use the word ‘brave', and then hating themselves for that. It just sounds so patronising.

"I'd rather the whole world knows about it so that people stop asking why my partner and I don't have children. Those conversations are the awkward ones."

Callinan's monologue is set in a sperm-delivery clinic, with Damian engaging in occasional "conversation" with other men in the waiting room. He wanted to broaden the show by including other men's stories, such as the man who has known for 10 years he's infertile, but whose wife won't give up on IVF.

Callinan, a comedy festival veteran, two-time Barry nominee and former star of Skithouse, has noticed that the sensitive and biographical nature of the show deepens his connection with his audience. "I think that there's something about telling your own story that people are more nurturing of - the connection is very strong.

Britons cautioned on foreign fertility treatment

2006-04-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Britons were urged on Friday to think twice about going abroad for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other types of fertility treatment.

The Human fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which monitors fertility clinics in England and Wales, said couples should think twice about the risks and implications before booking an IVF holiday.

"We know that a relatively small number of people choose to travel abroad to undergo fertility treatment and that sometimes the treatment is packaged as a 'holiday' where the patient can convalesce in the sun," said Suzi Leather, the chair of the

HFEA.

"However we are concerned that people who choose to have their treatment abroad should know about the potential risks," she added in a statement.

The HFEA said patients should consider what happens if something goes wrong, whether their information is kept confidential, the legal position of donors of eggs or sperm and how they are recruited, screened and compensated.

Leather said she has heard stories of foreign clinics offering treatments to patients that could be dangerous, such as implanting five embryos to increase the chances of a pregnancy.

Implanting two or more embryos can increase the odds of having a multiple birth, which can be dangerous for the mother and the babies.

"We would urge patients to think twice and consider the risks and implications before going abroad for treatment," Leather added.

'Forgotten' drug lets women have IVF without side-effects

2006-04-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

HUNDREDS of infertile women could be spared the most distressing side effects of IVF by a drug regime too rarely used in Britain, a leading specialist said yesterday.

Newer fertility drugs that act quickly without triggering menopausal symptoms can be as effective as standard therapies but are offered by only one in twenty British clinics, according to Bill Ledger, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sheffield.

Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists were developed in the 1990s and are used in 80 per cent of IVF cycles in Scandinavian countries. They halve the length of a cycle and avoid side effects of hormonal drugs such as hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings and insomnia.

They also significantly lower the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, the most dangerous complication of IVF apart from multiple births.

Despite these advantages, GnRH antagonists are unpopular with British fertility doctors, who consider that they slightly reduce the chances of a successful pregnancy compared with traditional long-protocol IVF drugs. Professor Ledger said that many clinics were too frightened of falling in the success-rate league tables.

Early clinical trials of GnRH antagonists found that they produced an average of 1.0 to 2.3 fewer eggs and 0.2 to 0.5 fewer good-quality embryos in each cycle. Pregnancy rates were slightly lower, but not statistically significant. Professor Ledger said the studies took place before most doctors had experience of the new drugs.

Success rates in clinics that regularly use GnRH antagonists are now comparable to those using older drugs. The one trial that examined clinics experienced in the new regime had found no appreciable difference in pregnancy rates. “The uptake of these drugs has been slower because of the conservative nature of IVF in Britain,” he said. “Clinics are terrified of a drop of a few points in their success rates if they switch.”

IVF involves stimulating ovaries to over-produce eggs, so that a dozen or so can be harvested and fertilised at the same time. For this to happen, it is necessary first to stop the normal menstrual cycle using drugs that block the action of GnRH, traditionally done with a class called GnRH agonists.

These drugs stimulate a flare in hormone levels before they fall, and must be given for two to three weeks before the ovaries can be stimulated and egg collection can begin. This long period is responsible for the menopausal symptoms.

GnRH antagonists work differently, neutralising the hormone’s action completely so that the pituitary gland cannot respond. There is no hormone spike and a cycle is “downregulated” much more quickly.

This means that GnRH antagonists can be given six days after a woman has started taking drugs to stimulate her ovaries. Treatment continues only for the critical period in which downregulation is essential, about five days, and does not continue for long enough to cause side effects.

Early births could prompt IVF restrictions

2006-04-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

Senior doctors today called for new regulations on fertility treatment in order to cut the number of premature births.

Assisted conception that involves transferring multiple embryos into a patient's womb should be limited as it increases the risk of babies being miscarried or born prematurely, according to two obstetricians from King's College London School of Medicine.

The proposal is one of several measures to reduce the rising number of premature births that Andrew Shennan, professor of obstetrics, and consultant obstetrician Susan Bewley put forward in the latest British Medical Journal (BMJ).

11.45am

Early births could prompt IVF restrictions

Friday April 21, 2006

Senior doctors today called for new regulations on fertility treatment in order to cut the number of premature births.

Article continues

The obstetricians expressed concern at rising rates of premature birth across Europe, warning that the trend could have serious financial and social consequences.

"The total health burden of the population will not change unless the number of premature deliveries can be reduced," they said.

They urged doctors to question the wisdom of inducing labour and allowing elective caesareans, both of which processes can be used to deliver babies early.

The obstetricians noted that premature babies often require intensive hospital care, and have lifelong health problems.

A fifth of babies born before 25 weeks' gestation have severe mental and physical disabilities, while those born earlier than 28 weeks spend 85 times longer in hospital in the first five years of their lives than full-term babies do.

The editorial in the BMJ follows a Danish study published earlier this year showing a 22% increase in Denmark's premature delivery rates between 1995 and 2000.

The researchers found that even among low-risk women aged between 20 and 40 in Denmark, there had been a 51% increase in early deliveries.

Factors known to increase the likelihood of premature birth include being obese or underweight, and smoking. Ethnic origin and social class also play a role.

However, most premature births followed spontaneous labour, in a sequence of events about which knowledge was lacking, the obstetricians said.

Fertility: The frozen ones

2006-03-13T08:44:00.000-08:00

A bitter legal battle is being fought over the future of six embryos, but there are 100,000 more in freezers at clinics across the country. Welcome to the chilly world of the almost-people

By Cole Moreton

They are the frozen ones. There are 117,619 of them in this country, enough to populate Blackburn or Cambridge, but they cannot walk or talk, eat or even breathe. They are the almost-people - living balls of human cells suspended in liquid nitrogen at sub-zero temperatures, waiting for their lives to begin again.

Lois Walker was one of them. She was conceived in October 1997, but not born until April 2000. Instead of nine months, her gestation period lasted more than two years. Lois is now five years old. "We sometimes say, 'You should be seven now,'" says her mother, Laura Walker. "We laugh about it. But when you stop to think, it is pretty spooky."

The eight-celled embryo that would become Lois spent those 30 months in a plastic tube, stored in a metal flask in a fertility clinic. Was she alive? Did she have any human rights? What should have happened to her if her parents had split up, and one of them had stopped wanting a baby?

Such questions have been raised again by the bitter legal battle between an infertile woman who wants to thaw her frozen embryos for "one last chance" of pregnancy and her former boyfriend, who has refused consent. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Natallie Evans cannot use the embryos she made with her ex-partner Howard Johnston unless he agrees. She wants a second hearing, but time is running out: under UK law the embryos must be destroyed in October, when it will be five years since they were made.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which licenses and monitors the 85 clinics carrying out IVF in this country, has told The Independent on Sunday there were 117,619 embryos in storage at the end of 2004. The figure may now be greater.

Embryos for use in IVF are created by mixing eggs taken from the woman with sperm in a petri dish. Any that fertilise are placed in an incubator for three days, during which they divide into eight cells each.

One or two embryos may now be transferred by catheter back to the womb, where it is hoped they will develop into a baby. The others are frozen and stored, usually to avoid the woman having to go through the invasive and expensive process of egg retrieval again. Natallie Evans's embryos were frozen in 2001 because it had become apparent she had cancer, which would mean the removal of her ovaries.

Ms Evans fought off the cancer. Unfortunately she also broke up with her boyfriend. They had signed the usual agreement that the embryos would not be thawed and used unless both parties agreed to it, but after the split Mr Johnston no longer wanted to father a child with her.

"There will be some people who think I am cold-hearted and my decision monstrous," the 29-year-old admitted yesterday. "But when I have a child I want to be a responsible father, not just some sperm donor who plays no part in his or her life."

Everyone from Vanessa Feltz to the Bishop of Rochester has expressed an opinion on the case, and Laura Walker is no exception. The 38-year-old from Chingford in east London knows neither of the people involved, but she does know how it feels to be childless - she went through 11 cycles of IVF, at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds. The result was Lois and her baby twin sisters, all three of them "frosties".

"I can see the man's point of view," says Mrs Walker, "but if I was that woman I would want to bloody murder him. It must be tearing her apart. How can a man hate a woman so much that he makes a decision like that?"

Hate versus love. Logic versus emotion. Man versus woman. The case has been presented in all these ways, but it is the language used to refer to the embryos that is revealing. Almost everybody has talked as if the fight was over an actual child. Actually, the chances of Ms Evans getting pregnant using one of the embryos is only about 14 per cent.

Science and the law both work on the basis that an embryo at this very early stage is a sub-human scrap of genetic material and only becomes a person later in its development. The majority of people going through IVF probably agree (it does make what they are doing far less morally complicated). But those who have been through IVF or made it happen know that even the clearest of minds can be ambushed by emotion and find themselves personalising embryos.

"Some people ask to take home the ones that have not been used," says Andy Glew, senior embryologist at the Essex Fertility Centre, in Buckhurst Hill. "We make sure that life has been terminated before we let them out of the building, but then we do give couples the embryos in a water-based solution so that they can bury them in the garden, or whatever they need to do."

The laboratory at this clinic, one of the best in the country, is no bigger than a domestic kitchen. It looks like one, with work surfaces and cupboards that might have been bought from MFI. The incubator resembles a fridge, and the five cannisters tucked away under work surfaces might be for a gas cooker. They actually contain 1,500 embryos, stored four at a time in thin, transparent plastic straws. "Some people forget that we have them," says Michael Ah-Moye, the consultant who leads the clinic. "That is one reason why we charge a fee for storage - as a reminder."

Every year around 27,800 couples in the UK have IVF, and 8,800 babies are born. The baby-making industry is large but the equipment is small, because this work is done in miniature. In the corner of the laboratory, under a hood that controls the quality of air, is a microscope that I looked through nine years ago and saw eight cells pulsating in a dish. That was my eldest son. Possibly. It may not have been - the embryo transfer was being combined with another sort of treatment - but the romantic view remains so tempting, a comfort blanket against the cold, alienating process of making babies without sex. The trouble is that if you allow yourself any belief, religious or instinctive, that life begins at conception, then the creation and freezing of embryos starts to feel disturbingly like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Even if these frozen ones are not deemed to be alive now, some of them will be one day - so what implications will freezing have for their futures?

The Medical Research Council says the risks of genetic damage and cancer in babies born through IVF may not be fully appreciated until more of them have grown into adulthood. The first test-tube baby was born in 1978. Two years ago the fertility specialist Lord Winston said that freezing embryos appeared to lead to changes in a gene whose job was to suppress cancer. "I'm not saying we should stop any of these treatments," he said, but he added that more research was needed into their effects.

None of which concerned Laura Walker very much during the 12 years she was having IVF. "I just felt like a failure because I could not have children," she says. "You get tunnel vision. You don't care about the process and you don't think about the future because it all hurts too much. You try anything, whatever the consequences, because you don't think anything is going to work."

She and her husband David began trying for a baby as soon as they got married. After two ectopic pregnancies they began the cycle of hope and despair that is IVF. One attempt costs around £3,000 at a private clinic. "We didn't keep track of the money," says Laura. "It was too scary. But I would have given up everything for a child."

Lois was eventually conceived at Barts, under a scheme partly funded by the NHS. "I couldn't believe it when she was born," says Mrs Walker. "My best friend came to see me and I kept saying, 'I've got a baby! I've got a baby!' She was like, 'I know!' We were in floods of tears."

The Walkers thought it might be easier to conceive again after Lois. They were wrong. They were about to give up when a friend told them about a new method being pioneered at the Essex clinic. The embryos made from Laura's eggs were grown for five days instead of three, by which time they had divided into 200 cells.

At this stage they are called blastocysts, and since the clinic started transferring them instead of three-day embryos the success rate has trebled. Last year 110 patients had blastocyst transfers at the clinic, and 38 per cent had babies.

Laura Walker was one of them. She cannot believe her luck, as she nurses her 10-week-old girls, Billie and Sydney. "We are blessed," she says, beaming. "I'm more in awe of the process now than ever. All the feelings of hurt have gone. But I remember them, you know? I hurt so deeply for so long. That's why I feel for Natallie Evans so much. It does not work for everyone, but she is not even being given the chance to try."

FROM THE BIG CHILL TO A BABY

How embryos are made, stored and one day - if they survive - may be given life

1. Eggs are created

Fertility drugs stimulate the ovaries into producing more eggs than usual. Their growth is monitored with ultrasound scans and, when ready to be released, they are collected

2. Eggs are collected

The eggs are collected from each ovary using a thin needle. This is either guided through the vagina by ultrasound or it is inserted via a small cut in the abdomen (a laparoscopy), usually under general anaesthetic

3. Sperm is washed

The male ejaculate is spun twice, to separate weak sperm and cellular debris from the rest. A solution is added and the strong sperm which are left in a pellet at the bottom of the centrifuge then swim to the top

4. Sperm meets egg

Eggs are placed in a solution in a petri dish, typically four at a time. Around 250,000 sperm are then introduced to the eggs. In ICSI, a technique used in 44 per cent of cycles, a single sperm is injected into an egg

5. Cells divide

Fertilised eggs are kept in an incubator at 37 degrees centigrade for three days, during which time they divide into eight cells. Some clinics now incubate for five days, creating a blastocyst with around 200 cells (see opposite page)

6. Embryos are frozen

Water is removed from the embryos, which are stored four at a time in thin plastic straws. The temperature is slowly reduced to -196C and the straws kept in a flask filled with liquid nitrogen. Clinics charge around £350 a year to keep one batch

7. Embryos are thawed

Ice crystals disappear as the straw is brought up to room temperature. Embryos are put through the solutions used to freeze them, but in reverse order. Now just tight balls of cells, they are left to expand overnight. It is possible that none of them will have survived this far

8. Embryos are returned

If not destroyed by freezing and thawing, two embryos are injected into the womb through the cervix using a fine catheter. If they implant in the womb and grow, a baby may result. But this only happens in about 14 per cent of embryo transfers

IVF is a perfectly valid solution for the childless, but it is not the only solution, says Max Pemberton

2006-03-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

Man + woman = baby. A simple enough sum. Of course, as with many equations, things are far more complex than they seem. Over the past 40 years, the stereotypical idea of family dynamics has drastically changed. I actually suspect that families were never that simple, but old social mores made it unacceptable to discuss the fact openly.

Being a doctor gives you the wonderful ability to ask the most probing questions about people's personal lives without getting slapped. Having talked to patients from all walks of life, it seems to me that no one has a "normal" family. But the growing proliferation of IVF treatments means that our idea of what constitutes a family can be further altered.

There were lots of issues thrown up by the court case between Natallie Evans and her ex-partner Howard Johnston last week. In 2001, the couple underwent IVF treatment after Miss Evans was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Six embryos were created and frozen. A year later, however, the couple separated. Last week, the European Court of Human Rights denied Miss Evans's request to have the embryos implanted against her ex-partner's wishes. There was the heart-wrenching spectacle of a tearful Miss Evans pleading to be allowed to become a mother.

But, of course, she can become a mother. Adoption has become an almost dirty word in this brave new world of the genetically savvy. What lies at the very core of this case is Miss Evans's desire to become a mother, but to become a mother to children that are genetically hers. She is not alone in this quest. There is an increasing belief that we are defined by our biology. We no longer have the traditional image of the nuclear family to give us our sense of belonging, so we look to ideas of genetic heritage to provide it for us.

Parenthood has ceased to be about bringing up children - taking them to Scouts, reading them a bedtime story or shouting at them for not eating breakfast, or, indeed, any of the countless things that contribute to making children who they grow up to be. Instead, it is increasingly viewed in terms of preserving your genetic information. It is functional; Darwinian.

But this reductionist view of parenthood completely misses the whole point of parents. It ignores the enormous impact that environment has on child development, and it strips away the power of human agency. As genetics has risen in prominence, so has the belief that it holds the answers to all our questions. Society's love affair with this branch of science is understandable. It suggests that somewhere, in the twists and turns of the double helix, the secrets of happiness and enlightenment can be found. We ceaselessly seek to attribute all aspects of being human to genes and ignore the science's shortcomings.

Being a parent means that you can have influence over another human being during the most formative years. The effects of parenting last a lifetime. Infertility can be a devastating condition and adoption is not an easy solution. But it is also not easy being a parentless child. The drive to have children that are genetically ours is an entirely intellectual one.

IVF is a perfectly valid solution for the childless, but it is not the only solution. It is a privilege that only a small proportion of the world's population has access to, and it has only been a possibility for a tiny fraction of human history. Increasingly, we emphasise nature over nurture and, while IVF may have offered hope to many, it comes at a cost. By making parenthood a ''right'', have we de-emphasised the responsibility that comes with it and forgotten the role that parents play in child development? Have we not mistaken the overwhelming desire to bring up a child and share in its life with the intellectual concept of genetic heritage?

The greatest sceptics I know concerning the limitations of genes as a means of understanding humanity are, in fact, geneticists. They know that far more goes into making a human than just what we can understand from what is written down in the genetic blueprint. If only the rest of us could realise that we are, thankfully, far greater than the sum of our parts.

Vatican on IVF

2006-03-04T00:56:00.000-08:00

A senior Vatican official yesterday said there was no moral justification for discriminating between embryos used in in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures, setting the tone for a Vatican conference on the ethical treatment of embryos before they are implanted.
Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Life, said the theory that an embryo created in a laboratory was merely a “pre-embryo" – and thus not worthy of legal protection and the right to life as an already implanted embryo – was morally wrong: “We must make it very clear that the discrimination between implanted embryos and embryos prior to implantation is a theory without any grounds, without any justification," Sgreccia said.
Sgreccia has said the Vatican is hosting the conference to review whether current scientific data supports the Vatican's hard-line position on in-vitro fertilisation and its belief that life begins at conception and deserves full legal protection from then on.
Pope Benedict XVI said that embryos created for in-vitro fertilisation deserve the same right to life as newborns and adults – a right that extends even to embryos that have not yet been transferred into a woman's womb. He made the comments to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which is hosting an international Vatican conference on the ethics surrounding the issue. The Vatican opposes in-vitro procedures because embryos created in a laboratory are often discarded, whereas others are frozen and still others are created solely for the sake of experimentation or to create stem cells.
The Pope repeated the Church's position that life begins at the moment of conception and deserves to be respected and protected – a position set out most authoritatively in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. That encyclical, however, did not specifically treat the question of the status of an embryo before it is implanted – the two or three days of growth in a laboratory during which the fertilized egg is dividing into a group of cells that are transferred by a doctor into the mother's uterine cavity.

Around 40% of patients about to undergo IVF had mental illness

2006-03-04T00:55:00.000-08:00

Some 40 per cent of patients who were about to undergo assisted reproductive technology (ART) were found to have a psychiatric disorder, according to Dr Michael Alper, Harvard Professor and Medical Director of Boston IVF.

According to Dr Alper “we haven’t done a great job of recognising that”. In addition to this, around 40 per cent of patients drop out of IVF after each cycle.

He said there is a case for counselling for these women.

Speaking of the common difficulties experienced by women undergoing IVF, Dr Alper said stress and emotional problems are a leading cause of patients deciding to discontinue treatment.

IVF needs to be made easier for patients, he said. Optimising your IVF practice as well as investing in nurses is needed to address these issues, Dr Alper said, adding that some IVF “hassles” for patients include learning about IVF injections, time away from work, and costs.

Dr Alper said operating an IVF clinic is like operating a “little hospital” and a lot of attention needs to be paid to the patient.

Almost 90 per cent of unhappy customers will never lodge a complaint, he said, and ultimately a better managed IVF centre will result in better retention and better results.

GPs and obstetricians are an important source of information for patients and in the last two years this is beginning to be recognised.

Speaking in an interview with IMN, Dr Alper said there has been a “lull in IVF” and it is now lacking major technology.

At present fertility technology is on “autopilot”, however, he feels pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) will be a major advance.

Dr Alper is confident the costs of IVF will come down but there will not be a dramatic reduction in overall costs of treatment

IVF advances reduce multiple births

2006-02-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

MULTIPLE pregnancies are becoming less common for women undergoing IVF treatment as a result of advancements in assisted reproductive technology, research shows.

While the number of treatment cycles is increasing, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found fewer embryos are being transferred for each cycle and the proportion of multiple pregnancies has fallen.

The Assisted Reproduction Technology in Australia and New Zealand report shows the number of IVF cycles increased by 9 per cent between 2002 and 2003, while resulting multiple pregnancies dropped from 19.4 per cent in 1994 to 18.1 per cent in 2003.

AIHW National Perinatal Statistics Unit spokesman Professor Michael Chapman said the change reflected a decrease in the number of embryos being transferred.

"In 1994, three or more embryos were transferred in 48.7 per cent of transfer cycles compared with 4.3 per cent of cycles in 2003," he said.

Births were achieved in 23.7 per cent of embryo transfer cycles where women used their own fresh embryos and in 15.2 per cent with frozen embryos.

"Women aged 25-29 years achieved more successful outcomes with 35.1 per cent of embryo transfer cycles achieving a live delivery, while women aged 40-44 years had a success rate of 9.5 per cent," Prof Chapman said.

Fertility Society of Australia president Dr Adrianne Pope said the report reflected the high standards of reproductive technology in Australia.

Suzanne and Jason Smith, both 32, from Windsor Gardens, successfully used IVF for their 11-week-old babies, Joshua and Kaitlyn.

Mrs Smith had two embryos implanted in her womb said it was a "mixed emotion" when she found out she was pregnant with a boy and girl.

Scanty tops can make you infertile

2006-02-20T06:56:00.001-08:00

LONDON: If you are trying to garner men’s attention by revealing your cleavage and exposing your midriffs in inclement weather, think again, as you may unconsciously risk becoming infertile in later life.

Wei-Xiong Chen, a leading practitioner in alternative medicine, has claimed that wearing skimpy croptops in cold weather could permanently affect the youngsters’ chances of having children, as low degree temperatures block the energy channels which run through the stomach.

He added that poor circulation caused by the cold could thin the womb lining, leading to painful periods and infertility.

"When the stomach area is exposed to cold air it can block the blood and energy flow in that area. It’s dangerous," The Scotsman quoted the doctor, as saying.

"The unhealthy environment inside the womb is the biggest factor behind infertility in modern society," he said. Chen, who runs a traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Glasgow, has written to Andy Kerr, the health minister, to persuade the Scottish Executive to warn teenagers of the dangers of the "unhealthy" fashion."The health minister should listen to these concerns because infertility costs the NHS money through expensive IVF treatments," he said.

However, traditional fertility experts seemed unconvinced.

"Culturally, people across the world wear clothing that exposes their midriffs all the time. There is no research in traditional medicine to support this," said Alison Murdoch, professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Donors should be offered payment, says IVF expert

2006-02-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

IVF specialist John McBain has re-entered the debate about boosting egg donor numbers, suggesting women who give their eggs to infertile couples should be offered payment for their time and trouble.

Dr McBain, a director of Melbourne IVF, was howled down in 2002 when he was quoted suggesting that couples ought to be able to pay $10,000 to buy another woman's eggs — a practice banned in Australia.

He now says women should not be paid for their eggs, but should be entitled to financial compensation for the "service" of donating them.

At present, egg donors may be paid for their medical costs (about $3500) and other reasonable costs, such as travel expenses, but they may not be given any additional payments or inducements.

Dr McBain said it was anomalous that a couple could buy an egg in California but then face no penalty when they returned home with a pregnancy.

"I think it's a pity that there are so relatively few egg donors in Australia because they don't have the same incentive (as women overseas who are paid for their eggs)," he said, stressing that this was a personal view.

In 2004 in Victoria, 230 women donated eggs to someone they knew, but only 31 offered them to strangers.

Gab Kovacs, medical director of Monash IVF, said he was totally opposed to payment for eggs but suggested another way to meet growing demand might be egg-sharing.

In Britain, under a process approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, a woman undergoing IVF may receive a financial contribution to the costs of her own treatment if she agrees to give away half her eggs to an infertile couple.

"I would have less problem with that than selling eggs," Professor Kovacs said. "I think it's something we could look at where someone who donates their eggs gets some sort of discount."

Louise Johnson, chief executive officer of the Infertility Treatment Authority, said egg-sharing could not be approved without a change to the law and the practice would need very careful consideration.

Ethical issues might arise if the couple that donated the eggs were unable to achieve a pregnancy but the woman who received them succeeded, she said. "If the Government changed the law, the authority would need to consider all the legal, ethical and social issues, including the potential for women to be exploited."

Ms Johnson said there was no provision under the law at present for egg donors to be paid for their time and trouble.

The state's infertility laws are being reviewed by the Victorian Law Reform Commission.

EGG DONOR FACTS

■ Egg donors should ideally be under 35 and have completed their own families.

■ Donors are required to undergo IVF treatment (ovarian stimulation and egg pick-up).

■ Medical costs (about $3500) are paid by the recipient.

■ Waiting lists for an anonymous donor range from 2-4 years.

An IVF father at 87

2006-02-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

MEN as old as 87 have had fertility treatment to start a family.

And women aged 17 to 55 have used IVF or assisted reproduction technology for a chance of conceiving.

Science helps create about 6500 lives in Australia each year – 6474 babies in 2003.

The ages of would-be parents are revealed in an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study on assisted fertility technology in 2003.

The average age of women giving birth after fertility treatment was 34.4 years, compared with the 2003 average of all mothers at 29.5 years.

But the average age of women having treatment was 35.2 years and their partners 37.8, indicating a lower success rate among older women.

Despite a higher-than-average rate of multiple births using fertility treatment, twin, triplet and quad births have fallen since 1994.

In 2003, 1141 sets of twins and 22 sets of triplets were born after assisted reproduction technology, about 18.1 per cent of pregnancies.

"Our goal is to maximise the success of treatments for infertile Australian couples," Fertility Society of Australia president Dr Adrianne Pope said.

`Reduction of multiple pregnancy, and its negative outcomes, has been achieved for the first time in the last 10 years."

The reduction in multiple births is partly due to a reduction in the number of embryos implanted.

In 1994, about half the women had three or more embryos transferred in the hope of becoming pregnant, compared with just 4.3 per cent in 2003.

Monash IVF medical director Gab Kovacs said the number of embryos implanted had fallen since 2003. More than half the women now used just one at a time.

Younger women were more likely to conceive and give birth than older patients.

Women aged 25 to 29 had a 27.7 per cent chance of pregnancy every time they used fresh embryos. Those aged 40 to 44 had a 6.8 per cent chance of falling pregnant.

Half of all babies were born by caesarean section in 2003, double the rate for normal births.

The number of premature babies born also dropped dramatically.

Fewer IVF mums having twins, says study

2006-02-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

The chances of having twins or other multiples after fertility treatment is falling, a new study shows.

The proportion of women using assisted reproductive technology (ART) who have twins is high because of the number of embryos transferred at each treatment cycle.

A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released on Thursday showed the proportion of multiple pregnancies resulting from ART fell from 19.4 per cent in 1994 to 18.1 per cent in 2003.

At the same time the number of treatment cycles between 2002 and 2003 increased by nine per cent.

AIHW spokesman Professor Michael Chapman said the change reflected a fall in the number of embryos being transferred per cycle in Australia and New Zealand.

Prof Chapman said 10 years ago, three or more embryos were transferred in almost half of all embryo transfer cycles.

The figure had fallen to 4.3 per cent of transfer cycles in 2003, he said.

The study showed 39,720 treatment cycles were attempted in Australia and New Zealand, resulting in 8,365 pregnancies.

Just over one-in-five resulted in miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, while 1,141 were twin births and 22 resulted in triplets.

The report also found women who entered fertility programs earlier in life had a better chance of a successful birth.

"When we look at the ages of women who used their own fresh embryos, women aged 25 to 29 years achieved more successful outcomes, with 35.1 per cent of embryo transfer cycles achieving a live delivery," Prof Chapman said.

"Women aged 40 to 44 years had a success rate of 9.5 per cent."

Women on fertility programs are also improving their chances of having average birthweight babies and delivering them full-term.

Low birthweight's and pre-term deliveries are a common problem with ART treatment.

The study showed just over one in four ART babies were being born pre-term - an improvement on one-in-three babies in 2000.

Babies born with low birthweight (less than 2.5kg) made up 21.8 per cent of babies born in 2003, down from 26.4 per cent in 2000.

Expert: BMI Can Help Determine Fertility

2006-02-11T04:46:00.000-08:00

BOSTON -- Doctors in Boston believe a person's body mass index could affect their fertility.

"Estrogens are produced in fat, and the more fat tissue you have, the higher your estrogen levels will be," said Dr. Samuel Pang, a fertility specialist. "What it does is, it causes an imbalance in the body, and that can lead to problems with ovulation."

Pang said the best way to figure out a woman's ideal weight range is to use the body mass index.

"The BMI is the ratio of the weight to the woman's height, and so based on the woman's height, we can calculate her ideal or optimum body weight," Pang said.

A BMI between 18 and 25 is considered normal, and that's the range doctors say you'll have your best chance at getting pregnant.

"Even if they can't get down to their ideal body weight, usually any amount of weight they can lose, and keep off, is helpful," Pang said.

Pang said a man's BMI will also affect a couple's fertility because his excess weight can hurt his sperm production.

Local Doctors Report Breakthrough In Assisted Fertilization

2006-02-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indianapolis doctors say that for the first time in the world, a human egg has been fertilized using a certain device that is placed inside a woman's body.Last week, fertility specialists at Clarian North Medical Center inserted an intravaginal cultural device into Tanya White, of Madisonville, Ky. The device contained 10 of her eggs and her husband's sperm.Doctors hoped that the device would enable fertilization inside the womb rather than in a lab dish. On Saturday, they learned that the procedure had been a success -- the eggs were fertilized."This is the first fertilization with this device and the first transfer of ... embryo with this device," Dr. Leo Bonaventura said.White is now carrying two embryo. The rest were frozen for possible later use.Doctors said they will know in two weeks whether the embryo will take in White's womb

7 months anniversary!! :P

2006-02-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well I didn't notice, but it has been more than half a year since I started this blog! I hope everybody who has come here found what tey were looking for, the latest news, maybe some article. And I hop everybody who has wnated to conceived a child by using an Infertility Treatment has come out successful. Thanks for everyone who has visited my site, and now we'll go for the full year!!! ;)

Experimental in vitro fertility option may be safer, cheaper

2006-02-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

PHILADELPHIA - Last June, after a week of fertility-drug shots, Christine Mozes' ovaries went into overdrive, literally bursting with eggs ripening in their watery sacs.

If she were to have taken the full course of drugs, her hyperstimulated ovaries could have triggered life-threatening breathing problems, kidney failure, and blood clots.

George Taliadouros, her avuncular physician at Delaware Valley Institute of Fertility and Genetics in Marlton, N.J., cut off the treatment she needed to get pregnant.

"He said, `We just can't do this,'" recalled Mozes, 37.

Her plight was one of the most common and vexing in infertility treatment. Like an estimated three million U.S. women, she has polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormonal disorder that disrupts ovulation. It's a leading cause of female infertility - but it makes infertility treatment extremely risky because the ovaries can easily be overstimulated.

The good news is that this reproductive double whammy is promoting the development of technology that may someday reduce the complications and cost of all high-tech baby-making. Instead of removing fully mature eggs from the ovaries and promptly fertilizing them, physicians remove immature eggs, ripen them in a lab dish, then add sperm. With this approach, the woman requires only three days of fertility drugs to gently stimulate her ovaries - compared with up to two weeks under the conventional method.

Lab-dish or in vitro egg maturation - IVM for short - is experimental, and has produced only about 300 babies worldwide, too few to firmly establish its safety.

Even so, for Mozes and her husband, John, it was a godsend. She is now four months pregnant.

"This is just overwhelming," she said. "It was great because I only needed three days of shots. And no misery."

In vitro egg maturation is not really new. In 1994, Australian researchers reported the first birth after IVM in a patient with polycystic ovaries.

Since then, conventional in vitro fertilization - uniting a mature egg and sperm in a dish, growing embryos, then implanting some in the uterus - has become increasingly successful. About two million IVF babies have been born worldwide. But IVM remains a challenge.

Human eggs - the largest cells in the body - are constantly changing, from the moment a woman is born with more than a million of them, until puberty, when about 300,000 remain, through menopause, when the supply is gone.

During each monthly menstrual cycle, one egg becomes dominant, accumulates fluid in its sac, and breaks out. About 34 hours before it escapes, the egg gets a hormonal signal to jettison half the chromosomes in its nucleus - just in case a sperm comes along to replace the lost genetic material.

Scientists have long struggled to make eggs perform this nuclear split, called "meiosis," in a lab dish instead of an ovary. But even when they succeeded, the eggs resisted fertilization because their outer membranes had hardened; sperm just bounced off. When eggs did manage to fertilize, the embryos usually died soon afterward.

On the encouraging side, studies have found that when IVM works, babies are healthy and develop normally.

"The principle behind this is great. It has potential and promise," said Christos Coutifaris, head of the University of Pennsylvania's IVF program. "But it's still experimental."

Danish researchers have led the way in developing better chemical solutions to nurture egg maturation. In November, Denmark-based Medicult became the first company to win FDA approval of its IVM culturing medium.

That medium is now being used by eight U.S. infertility clinics, including Delaware Valley Institute. A clinic in Florida and another in Illinois have each achieved a single IVM pregnancy, although one patient miscarried, according to Medicult and the clinics.

The new method may increase laboratory costs, as embryologist Jennifer Macdonald must closely monitor the eggs during their 32-hour sojourn in the culture medium. Fertilization also is a bit more expensive; to overcome the hardened-membrane problem, the egg is carefully punctured and a single sperm is injected.

Still, experts believe that maturing eggs outside the body could dramatically cut costs because the woman's ovaries would need minimal stimulation and she would need fewer ultrasounds and blood tests. Taliadouros estimates patients would need $900 worth of fertility drugs, instead of $5,000.

If science usurps yet another small but critical step in the creation of life, could abnormalities or defects turn up?

"We worry about that," he said. "But right now, we're doing it for patients for whom Nature doesn't do it better."

Women such as Mozes.

She didn't know she had polycystic ovarian syndrome until she first tried to get pregnant about eight years ago.

The syndrome, which affects an estimated 6 percent of women of childbearing age, is a complex set of metabolic and hormonal malfunctions that can vary in severity and symptoms. Basically, the ovary doesn't make all the hormones needed for eggs to fully mature. Even though eggs may start to grow and accumulate fluid, they remain trapped and eventually die in their sacs, turning into fibrous cysts. Without the release of an egg, the menstrual cycle is irregular or missing - the hallmark symptom.

Mozes, a child-welfare administrator, often missed periods. But then, so did her mother and sisters, and they had no apparent fertility problems.

When Mozes couldn't get pregnant, she and her husband resorted to in vitro fertilization. They succeeded on their very first try - daughter Riley is now 4 1/2 - but the fertility drugs made Mozes extremely ill.

Her ovaries ballooned, causing fluids to shift from her blood vessels into her belly and chest. That erroneously signaled her kidneys to stop making urine, which made the swelling even worse. Even after the drug treatment was over, and 30 eggs had been removed from her ovaries, she spent a week in bed, massively bloated, short of breath, with severe abdominal pain and nausea.

And that bout of hyperstimulation was not nearly as severe as what she was headed for last summer, when her treatment was halted.

Although deaths are rare, severe hyperstimulation can cause strokes and other long-term complications.

Some patients can endure the treatment if drug doses are reduced or briefly interrupted, but it's a dicey balancing act.

"If you give too little medication, the patient may not respond," Taliadouros said. "Give too much, the patient hyperstimulates."

In Denmark, Anne Lis Mikkelsen, an IVM pioneer at Herlev University Hospital's fertility clinic, has been offering IVM not only to polycystic patients, but also to couples in which the man has fertility problems.

Pregnancy rates of 24 percent per IVM attempt - one out of every four patients - have been achieved, she wrote in a journal article in May.

Others say the technology has a long way to go. But it's only a matter of time.

In vitro egg maturation "is not ready for prime time. But you have to start somewhere," said Carolyn Coulam, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Rinehart Center for Reproductive Medicine in Chicago.

"I think it is the wave of the future."

Steps to boost one's fertility

2006-02-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

JACQUI RIPLEY

What men and women do or not do can make the difference

THOSE PLANNING a baby should look first at their lifestyle.

Get enough Zinc

Although zinc is essential for both sexes, it plays a particularly important role in the production of testosterone.

``A low level leads to a reduction in the production of this main male hormone which can lead to impaired fertility,'' says Dr Ananda Prasad, professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

In one study, Prasad found men put on a diet low in zinc had significant drops in sperm count. When their zinc intake was restored to the recommended daily allowance of 15mg, testosterone levels and sperm count returned to normal in between six and 12 months.

Insufficient vitamin C in a man's diet is also thought to lead to sperm clumping together, a problem called agglutination, which inhibits sperm motility.

``There is plenty of evidence to show that caffeine, particularly in coffee, decreases fertility,'' says nutritional therapist Dr Marilyn Glenville.

``Drinking as little as a cup a day can halve your chances of conceiving." One study showed problems with sperm increase with the number of cups consumed daily.''

She suggests eliminating food and drink containing caffeine for at least three months before trying to conceive.

Give supplements a rest

A team of researchers at California's Loma Linda University School of Medicine explored the effect of popular herbs on fertility and their findingssuggest high doses of St John's wort, ginkgo and echinacea might even damage eggs and sperm.

St John's wort in particular prevented sperm achieving penetration of the egg and seemed to cause genetic mutations in sperm.

There is a strong relationship between body fat and fertility. A woman must have body fat of at least 18 per cent to produce oestrogen leading to ovulation — your best chance of conceiving is when 20-25 per cent of your body mass is fat tissue.

"Thin men may have low sperm counts, while obese men have low testosterone levels and high oestrogen levels, which impede sperm production."

Turn off your mobile

Research presented to the European Society of Human Reproduction & Embryology in Berlin in 2004 suggested a man's fertility may be damaged by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobiles. Men who carry their phone on a belt or in a trouser pocket are thought to be at highest risk. Those who had their phone on stand-by all day had about a third less sperm than those who did not.

And, of the remaining sperm, high numbers were found to be swimming abnormally. However, scientists say further work needs to be done to confirm the finding.

Chill out

Stress: an excellent contraceptive. In women it disrupts the hormonal communication between the brain, pituitary gland and ovaries, interfering with egg maturation and ovulation.

There is also a direct link between the brain and reproductive tract.

When a woman feels under pressure, spasms occur in the fallopian tubes and uterus, which can affect the movement and implantation of a fertilised egg. In men, physical and emotional stress alters sperm counts, motility and structure.

Sunbathe

Prescribe yourself a holiday as sunlight is one of the best fertility treatments around. "Research shows it boosts testosterone in men," says Dr Penny Stanway, author of LifeLight (Kyle Cathie).

"Exposure to sunlight also raises women's oestrogen levels and encourages regular ovulation."

Fertility Treatments for Older Couples – Infertility increases with Age

2006-02-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

There are several options in seeking treatment for infertility. If couples are unable to conceive after one year of trying, experts say you should consider seeking treatment. You may want to receive a thorough diagnostic evaluation to determine the best course of action. This can be done by an infertility specialist.

There are several infertility treatments including Assisted Hatching, micromanipulation, Microsurgical Tubal Repair, ICSI Offers New Hope for Couples With Male Factor, IVF with ICSI - A Treatment For Men With No Sperm in Ejaculate, and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI).

Women today are waiting to get pregnant more frequently than before. This is the reason for most of the infertility today, according to Dr. Sherman Silber, author of How to Get Pregnant.

In an ABC News broadcast, Sliber said that when women are in their early 20’s they have a 1% chance of being infertile. By the time women reach their late 20’s they have a 16% chance of being infertile. The number goes up to 25% when they get into their 30’s.

This type of problem does not occur with men according to Silber. Sperm production in men does not drastically decrease with age. Men either have high sperm counts or they don’t.

You may want to also review the State Infertility Insurance Laws to assist you with financial considerations. Then you need to choose the right clinic. There are directories for infertility clinics. The ihr.com website is a great place to find clinics in your area. If you are using a third party egg-donor as part of the process, you may want information on how to choose donor. The Internet Health Resources website is a great resource for this as well.

How many ticks left in biological clock?

2006-02-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

New test can help women gauge future fertility

IN THE GAME OF LIFE, does your biological clock say it's overtime?

For women wondering how long they can risk delaying motherhood, a test to predict fertility has just gone on the market in Britain, and the developers are exploring whether to offer it in the United States.

The test, called Plan Ahead, assesses the number of eggs in a woman's ovaries by measuring three hormones in the blood, and then predicts the woman's ovarian reserves over the next two years. The number of eggs serves as a "clock" that indicates how far along the path toward menopause she has traveled.

The $300 kit is sold by Lifestyle Choices, a company launched last October specifically to market female fertility and menopause products. It has been available for sale on the Internet since last month.

Users of the kit have a health professional draw a blood sample, which is then shipped to a laboratory to be analyzed. They receive a letter explaining the results within about four weeks.

Bill Ledger, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Sheffield in Britain, developed the test with the aim that it will one day be utilized by women around the world.

"My hope is that the Plan Ahead test will help many women avoid the anguish caused by the early or unexpected arrival of declining fertility and menopause," he said.

Ledger said that fertility starts to decline significantly after a woman hits 35, and that many women who've put off having children find it more difficult to get pregnant naturally as they get older.

Stuart Gall, managing director of Lifestyle Choices, said there's high demand for a test such as Plan Ahead in the United States.

"The regulatory bodies are different in the States, and so we're now trying to figure out our options for selling there and to check out what's needed from us," he said.

Gall pointed out that some of the materials used to test two of the women's ovarian hormones and the pituitary hormone actually originate in the United States.

"We believe we will be able to sell this product around the world," he said.

Gall said that there are two well-defined markets for the test.

"There are the 28- to 35-year-olds who are working on their careers now and wondering if they can wait a while to start having children," he said. "Then there are moms who've had a child and are wondering if they can take a break for a few years, or should have another child quickly."

In general, women in both the United States and Britain are putting off having children longer so that they can work on their careers. As a result, the average age at which a woman has her first child has increased in the United States from 21.4 in 1970 to 25.1 in 2002, according to a Census Bureau report.

A spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association in London agreed that the test would predict the number of eggs a woman will have for the next two years, but warned that there are many other factors involved in fertility such as the quality of the eggs.

"This test is just one part of the jigsaw when it comes to fertility issues," said spokeswoman Melissa Dear.

"The quality of your partner's sperm is vital too, as well as lifestyle issues such as drug or alcohol intake," she said.

Susan Seenan, a spokeswoman for Infertility Network UK in London, agreed that the test measures only one aspect of fertility.

"It does not, for example, tell you that you may have problems with blocked fallopian tubes or that when you start trying there may be a male factor problem," she said.

"The test can point to a potential problem with egg reserves and perhaps lead women to seek advice earlier than if they have not taken the test," she said. "But we would urge caution in not using this as a sole indicator of future fertility."

Experimental in vitro fertility option

2006-02-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

Last June, after a week of fertility-drug shots, Christine Mozes' ovaries went into overdrive, literally bursting with eggs ripening in their watery sacs.

If she were to have taken the full course of drugs, her hyperstimulated ovaries could have triggered life-threatening breathing problems, kidney failure, and blood clots.

George Taliadouros, her avuncular physician at Delaware Valley Institute of Fertility and Genetics in Marlton, cut off the treatment she needed to get pregnant.

"He said, 'We just can't do this,' " recalled Mozes, 37.

The Lumberton woman's plight was one of the most common and vexing in infertility treatment. Like an estimated three million U.S. women, she has polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormonal disorder that disrupts ovulation. It's a leading cause of female infertility - but it makes infertility treatment extremely risky because the ovaries can easily be overstimulated.

Lab-dish or in vitro egg maturation - IVM for short - is experimental, and has produced only about 300 babies worldwide, too few to firmly establish its safety.

Even so, for Mozes and her husband, John, it was a godsend. The Lumberton woman - the first to undergo the procedure at the Delaware Valley Institute - is now four months pregnant.

"This is just overwhelming," she said. "It was great because I only needed three days of shots. And no misery."

In vitro egg maturation is not really new. In 1994, Australian researchers reported the first birth after IVM in a patient with polycystic ovaries.

Scientists have long struggled to make eggs perform this nuclear split, called meiosis, in a lab dish instead of an ovary. But even when they succeeded, the eggs resisted fertilization because their outer membranes had hardened; sperm just bounced off. When eggs did manage to fertilize, the embryos usually died soon afterward.

On the encouraging side, studies have found that when IVM works, babies are healthy and develop normally.

"The principle behind this is great. It has potential and promise," said Christos Coutifaris, head of the University of Pennsylvania's IVF program. "But it's still experimental."

The Delaware Valley Institute is offering IVM free of charge - only to polycystic ovarian-syndrome patients - under an experimental protocol approved by an outside ethics-review board. The clinic plans to do 25 cases, then assess the results. Six patients have been through IVM there so far.

The new method may increase laboratory costs, as embryologist Jessica Macdonald must closely monitor the eggs during their 32-hour sojourn in the culture medium. Fertilization also is a bit more expensive; to overcome the hardened-membrane problem, the egg is carefully punctured and a single sperm is injected.

If science usurps yet another small but critical step in the creation of life, could abnormalities or defects turn up?

"We worry about that," he said. "But right now, we're doing it for patients for whom Nature doesn't do it better."

Women such as Mozes.

She didn't know she had polycystic ovarian syndrome until she first tried to get pregnant about eight years ago.

Mozes, a child-welfare administrator, often missed periods. But then, so did her mother and sisters, and they had no apparent fertility problems.

When Mozes couldn't get pregnant, she and her husband resorted to in vitro fertilization. They succeeded on their very first try - daughter Riley is now 41/2 - but the fertility drugs made Mozes extremely ill.

Her ovaries ballooned, causing fluids to shift from her blood vessels into her belly and chest. That erroneously signalled her kidneys to stop making urine, which made the swelling even worse. Even after the drug treatment was over, and 30 eggs had been removed from her ovaries, she spent a week in bed, massively bloated, short of breath, with severe abdominal pain and nausea.

And that bout of hyperstimulation was not nearly as severe as what she was headed for last summer, when her treatment was halted.

Although deaths are rare, severe hyperstimulation can cause strokes and other long-term complications.

Some patients can endure the treatment if drug doses are reduced or briefly interrupted, but it's a dicey balancing act.

"If you give too little medication, the patient may not respond," Taliadouros said. "Give too much, the patient hyperstimulates."

Pregnancy rates of 24 percent per IVM attempt - one out of every four patients - have been achieved, she wrote in a journal article in May.

Others say the technology has a long way to go. But it's only a matter of time.

"I think it is the wave of the future."

Test tubes kids meet their 'Doctor Mother' in Chennai

2006-02-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

It was a rather unusual meeting for many children, born as test tube babies, and their parents in Chennai, who gathered here to celebrate the success of technology over nature in reproduction.

Organised at the behest of a pioneering doctor, the meeting was hosted by Dr Kamala Selvaraj, a Specialist in Assisted Reproduction Therapy (ART), as the founding day celebrations of G G Hospital, which is named after her father and well-known yesteryear Tamil actor Gemini Ganeshan.

The meeting-cum-party appeared like a celebration of festival in the presence of children aged between two-days to 15 years. The joyous presence was a testimony to the victory of technology over nature.

"We feel very happy because the whole life of these parents has changed and they are so happy that they think of us everyday. All these children are brilliant, they all do very well, many of them stand first in their classes and are scholarship winners. Most of them are doing very well. We are the first ones in India, to hold such a meet," said Kamala Selvaraj.

The tiny bundles of joy the parents carried in their arms and the teenaged ones, who raced around on their own, looked like the success stories that brought joy in the lives of those who had lost all hopes.

Dr.Selvaraj said that out of the 5,000 odd cases that were treated at the hospital, about 1,700 resulted in pregnancies and about 842 were carried to a full term. Nearly 250 of them attended the party as a gesture of thanking the people who made it possible for them.

"I conceived after meeting Doctor Kamala Selvaraj and today I have a test tube baby. I am very grateful to the doctor for the beautiful gift of my darling daughter Jayashree. This is the most wonderful thing that has happened to us. So when she called us today, it felt great to come here to meet all the test tube babies. We really enjoyed this today," said Bina Mehta, a mother of a teenaged-girl.

The children too seem to be aware that they were test tube babies.

"I am very proud that I am South India's first test-tube-baby. I feel very happy about it. At this time, I would like to thank my doctor who has helped me to be born in this world," said Kamala Ratnam, a teenaged-girl who is named after the doctor herself.

Statistics indicate that in India, one in five couples is childless.

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), which includes In-Vitro-Fertilisation (IVF) and Intra Cytoplasm Sperm Injection (ICSI), is seen as the last resort for infertile couples.

Over half a million babies are born with the help of the IVF technique every year.

An IVF cycle in the US costs around 20,000 dollars and in the UK clinics the same is as high as a whopping 3,500 pounds. Interestingly, the Indian hospitals achieve the same with 2,000 dollars.

A major part of the expenses goes towards the injections needed to increase the number of eggs produced by the ovary from one per month to upto10-15 per month.

Many parents from abroad are visiting Indian fertility clinics as the costs in West are very high for similar treatment.

Healthwatch: Study Shows Acupuncture May Help IVF

2006-02-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

(WJZ) BALTIMORE Local researchers are trying to find out if acupuncture can improve the odds or pregnancy for infertile couples. Researchers at the University of Maryland Medical Center have launched a study that offers acupuncture to patients undergoing in vitro fertilization.

Sheryl Brandt's 22-month-old daughter, Grace, is the child she dreamed of having, but also worried would never come. During her fourth attempt at in vitro fertilization, Brandt enrolled in a small study that combined IVF with acupuncture.

"We had decided we do one more attempt and if we got pregnant great, but if not, we would be our own family," Brandt tells WJZ Eyewitness News.

Some of the other studies show that acupuncture could potentially improve blood flow to the uterus, help patients relax, and could have bearing on pregnancy success rate with IVF.

A pilot study at the University of Maryland Medical Center will help researchers learn more. Sixty women undergoing IVF will be divided into two groups, half of whom will get real acupuncture and half who won't. Doctors will monitor patients closely for changes in blood flow.

"As we place an embryo in the uterus, if there's good blood flow, the lining is healthier, more receptive to the embryo implanting and producing pregnancy," says University of Maryland Medical Center Dr. Laurence Udoff.

Brandt isn't certain acupuncture helped her get pregnant, but decided to try it again after Grace's birth. During her IVF cycle she received acupuncture and is now pregnant with her second child.

Patients in the study receive acupuncture four times during the cycle. To enroll in the study call 410-328-2304.

IVF - in pursuit of the unattainable?

2006-01-31T08:08:00.000-08:00

The science of IVF is extraordinary. On an individual level it transforms couples’ lives, providing a solution to a devastating situation. But it’s also an expression of our collective obsession with the idea we can provide perfect lives to people in our imperfect world.

Humanity has decided its destiny is to solve all problems and provide some sort of earthly utopia. Consequently, we don’t think through the social and ethical issues of our technological progress very well.

IVF critics claim intervention is encouraged thanks to the money that can be made. This cynical view may have some truth, but no more than the deeper issue that many people not only believe they can “have it all”, but also “having it all” is a human right.

It isn’t surprising that the systems governing IVF are not sophisticated enough to deal with the wave of emotions and complex issues that arise from dabbling with the human desire to reproduce.

We are an outcome-driven society.

Governments spend millions promoting their achievements. Businesses focused on delivering profits ignore process. Our children are funnelled through 13 years of education, with only a single score received in their final high school year to show for all they’ve learned.

Being outcome-focused means the processes we undertake as human beings suffer. The ethical dilemmas presented by science and technology are not dealt with systematically. And our governments are ill-equipped to legislate when they themselves are more focused on the electorate’s interest as the end result rather than the process.

This may be because we tend towards conservatism. Our society’s initial response to change is usually negative. We oppose before engaging, whatever the issue, and prefer just to be told the end result. Our lack of participation and discussion in the decision-making process is doing us a disservice.

We continue to fail to come to terms with the issues surrounding IVF and other complex matters because we hold up choice as the dominant ethic. More choice gives us greater possibilities and opportunities to express our individuality and less chance to expose our imperfections.

The impact of that choice on the community is given insignificant attention. This is the case with scientific developments such as genetically modified crops, genetic testing and IVF technologies. All promote their ability to reduce imperfection and provide consistency in an unstable and uncertain world. But their promises of certainty are hollow without adequate longitudinal studies of their impact on society.

So I was surprised by the decision early last year not to allow a Victorian woman access to her dead husband’s sperm. The core reason was he couldn’t give his consent. His death meant his choice went to the grave with him.

To uphold the choice of the dead over that of the living is a new twist, and in some ways conflicts with another key decision in Victoria this year - to allow contact between sperm donors and their biological offspring.

How can we consider giving anonymous sperm donors access to records that will allow them to contact children they have fathered in only the most rudimentary, biological sense - even after they were under the impression that anonymity was a key clause of the initial, porn-fuelled deposit?

Yet we’re unwilling to allow a woman access to the sperm of the man she loved and shared a life with. Such decisions are made in isolation and with a lack of regard for the deeper social consciousness that tries to make sense of these outcomes.

We despise hypocrisy, but in the rapid pursuit of choice and perfection we’re unable to avoid a myriad of ethical inconsistencies.

Of course just before Christmas the Civil and Administrative Tribunal overturned this decision, and perhaps during 2006 we will have the first child fathered in Australia by a dead man. A Ripley’s Believe It or Not if ever there was one.

Still, our continued lack of adherence to rigorous and thoughtful processes exposes our human tendency to hypocrisy. We’re so very fallible. Thanks to scientific discoveries and the strangely held idea that any new science is actually “progress”, we find ourselves in an ethically confusing and contradictory world.

We need to return to the root of the dilemma and start asking questions that are progressive in action, not just in name. We need to ask how important choice is. Is it really a right for most of us to have freedom of choice above everything else?

The root of the IVF dilemma is whether IVF itself actually contributes positively to society. Is it just another example of the pursuit of unattainable perfection?

We want to believe it isn’t that complicated. But it is. The issue of fertility decision-making doesn’t have any perfect answers. The real question is not who should have access to IVF, but just how perfect do we think our lives should be?

Navigating the infertility maze

2006-01-31T08:06:00.000-08:00

Dr John J. Stangel

For couples that have tried in vain for months -- sometimes years -- to conceive a child, the diagnosis of infertility is usually met with a barrage of emotions. The most intense of all is often confusion, as a maze of possible problems and potential solutions spurs more questions than answers. "Is it me, or is it him, or is it both of us? Will I have to take drugs, or have surgery? Do I need a specialist? Is In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) our only choice? Where do we start?"

"The field of reproductive medicine has made rapid and incredible advances over the past decade in the area of infertility treatment options, and now the vast majority of infertile couples can achieve a successful pregnancy," says Dr. John J Stangel, Westchester County Medical Director of Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut. Dr Stangel, co-author of the new book, The Unofficial Guide to Getting Pregnant, adds, "But a huge amount of new information has left many couples to navigate a maze that seems to be intimidating." This can lead to emotional frustration from not knowing which path to choose, physical discomfort from unnecessary or inappropriate treatments, and even financial troubles from the cost of treatment and the confusion over insurance coverage, notes Dr Stangel.

"Fortunately, although the sea of infertility solutions is vast and deep, there is a step-by-step system that simplifies the process of determining which path is right for each individual couple," says Dr Stangel. "The first step, of course, is to consult a reproductive specialist -- a medical doctor, often an obstetrician, trained and board certified in Reproductive Medicine and infertility," he adds.

Then, after the following five steps, an infertile couple is usually on their way to a healthy, successful pregnancy:

Step 1: The fertility workup
This exam is the crucial first step for couples requiring treatment for infertility. Both mom-to-be and dad-to-be participate, and the questions range from the mundane ("How old are you?" and "Have you ever had a child?") to the complex ("Did your mother take Diethylstilbestrol [DES] when she was pregnant with you?" and "Have you ever had chemotherapy or radiation to treat cancer, and if so, what specific drugs were used?"). Dr Stangel says, "A physical examination, along with discussion of medical histories, lifestyle histories, timing of intercourse and even choices of undergarments for dad-to-be are fair game during the workup." This is also a good time to ask specific questions, or to tell your doctor about anything you suspect might pertain to your infertility.

Step 2: The hormone check
While In Vitro Fertilization and other Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) tend to get most of the attention, the fact is that only 3% of infertile couples require IVF or other ARTs to conceive. "The great majority of female infertility can be attributed to hormone imbalances," Dr. Stangel notes. "When this is the case, there are a number of drug and hormone therapies available to normalize the hormone levels, and even some lifestyle options like weight loss or weight gain that may help regulate a woman's cycle to help conception along," he adds.

Step 3: The sperm check
Motility, viscosity, quantity, quality -- the possible problems with sperm are a contributing factor in nearly half of all infertile couples' inability to conceive. "A lab experienced at doing semen analysis should evaluate the sperm. The lab results should be interpreted by a urologist, andrologist or reproductive endocrinologist – each experienced with this type of study," Dr. Stangel urges. Again, there are a number of lifestyle- related fixes for sperm issues, as well as several drug and hormone therapies available.

Step 4: The structural inspection
Along with the above studies, specialists move to the structure of both the male and female reproductive systems. Troubles in this area include blocked fallopian tubes, uterine malformations and even problems with the penile and seminal structures. "Most of the time, if there is a structural problem surgery is needed to correct these issues in order to achieve a pregnancy," says Dr Stangel.

Step 5: Exploring the ARTs
In the event that the first four steps don't result in pregnancy, Assisted Reproductive Technology can help. From In Vitro Fertilization, ZIFT, GIFT and TET procedures to promising new techniques for maturing eggs outside the womb and cryopreservation of human eggs, the ARTs are helping tens of thousands of couples each year to achieve a healthy, successful pregnancy. Originally designed for women with damaged fallopian tubes, ART is now used to address every conceivable fertility issue, with an average success rate of about 30 percent per attempt.

"While it can be overwhelming at times, with the right guidance, the maze of infertility can be a journey of hope and, ultimately, happiness for couples wishing to have a child," concludes Dr Stangel.

Home fertility tests soar

2006-01-30T06:49:00.000-08:00

Adriana Iliescu became the world's oldest mother when she gave birth to a baby daughter at the age of 66 last year.

The children's author had reportedly undergone fertility treatment in Romania for nine years in her attempt to become a mother.

Adriana used a donor egg to create her daughter, Eliza Maria, who was born five weeks premature - a twin had died in her womb.

Elizabeth Buttle, a farmer from Carmarthenshire, became Britain's oldest mother when she gave birth to a son at the age of 60.

It later emerged that Mrs Buttle had lied about her age to receive fertility treatment from a clinic in London. But she has remained unrepentant about her decision to have a child at that age.

"I do wish I had more children while I was younger," she told sceptics a year after her son Joe's birth in 1997 - some 40 years after her first daughter Belinda was born.

"But farming is a very hard life, you're always busy and it's just one of those things you keep putting off until next year.

"A lot of mothers in their 20s, 30s and 40s die and leave children. So, just because you're older doesn't mean when you come to a certain age they are going to shoot you out of the way."

Anecdotal evidence from fertility clinics throughout England and Wales would suggest that, while Adriana Iliescu and Elizabeth Buttle may be extreme examples, large numbers of women in their 40s are seeking help to conceive - some clinics have reported that half of their clients are women aged 40 to 49.

It would appear that IVF, in spite of the age limit imposed by the NHS for its "one free go" offer, is fast becoming something of a safety net for those older women who put off parenthood earlier in life to pursue a career or financial stability.

Official figures compiled by the Office of National Statistics reveal that the proportion of women choosing to have children later in life is continuing to rise, with fathers getting older too.

The ONS said that in 2004, for the first time, the fertility rate for women aged 30 to 34 in England and Wales overtook that for the 25-to-29 age group.

The fertility rate for women aged 30 to 34 was 99.4 live births per 1,000 women - an increase of 4.9% on 2003 and the highest fertility rate in any age group since 1998.

The growing phenomenon of older parenthood - which has accompanied women becoming more visible in the workplace, and in the most senior roles - has raised a raft of concerns that women, in particular, may be being "lulled" into infertility.

A group of London-based obstetricians, writing in the British Medical Journal last year said, "The availability of in vitro fertilisation may lull women into infertility while they wait for a suitable partner and concentrated on their careers and achieving security and a comfortable living standard.

"But this expensive, invasive treatment has high failure rates - more than 70% of women undergoing a cycle of IVF do not achieve a live birth, more than 90% when older than 40."

There is also concern that male infertility is declining as a result of environmental pollution - some studies have tracked a decline in sperm numbers since the start of last century.

Nazar Amso, a senior lecturer in reproductive medicine at Cardiff University and a consultant gynaecologist, said, "There is some evidence that toxic chemicals can affect sperm quality and numbers and some of these may be increasing as pollutants in the environment.

"If this is the case then it is reasonable to assume that one has to be concerned about the future years when pollution may affect male fertility even more.

"In terms of female reproductive potential, we already know that age is an important factor and that the success of IVF treatment declines with increasing age.

"There is also evidence that pelvic inflammatory disease and repeated bouts of it can cause tube blockages and damage.

"Taking all these factors into consideration, I feel concerned that the human race's potential for reproduction is declining over time."

Peter Bowen-Simpkins, director of the Cromwell IVF and Fertility Centre, in Swansea, added, "The average age of first conception is rapidly increasing, a fact which has become very, very obvious in fertility clinics where we are seeing more and more women in their 30s coming along. And that's quite worrying.

"Lifestyle pressures are determining age of first conception - there are economic pressures as people want a job with good prospects; they want a mortgage and many want to travel more and have a few decent holidays before pregnancy. But we still have the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe, which is very sad."

It is exactly this growing trend to delay parenthood until later in life, coupled with declining male and female fertility and long waiting lists for IVF treatment - at the moment couples are advised to wait at least a year before they even take the first steps towards seeking medical help for fertility problems - which has spawned a new market for DIY fertility tests.

But despite their high price tags - the Fertell his and hers tests developed by the University of Birmingham costs £80 and the Plan Ahead kit, which assesses the number of eggs in a woman's ovaries compared with the levels expected for others of the same age, costs £179 - experts are convinced that they are not a waste of money.

Mr Amso said, "The justification for these tests is that a couple can find out about their own fertility - it's always helpful to know whether a woman is ovulating.

"The guidelines for IVF treatment and infertility say if a couple has been trying for a year or more to get pregnant without success they should contact their GP.

"A GP will not do a sperm test on a couple who have been trying for less than a year, but if the man has tested his own sperm at home, or a woman has taken a test showing she is not ovulating, then it would be reasonable to expedite the referral to a specialist clinic."

Women with endometriosis undergoing IVF benefit from treatment with GnRH agonists

2006-01-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

The live birth rate per woman was significantly higher in women with endometriosis who received gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist for three to six months before commencing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), compared to control groups. The number of women who became pregnant was also significantly higher.

These findings are published in the latest update of The Cochrane Library.

Endometriosis is a disease in which the lining of the womb (endometrial tissue) grows outside the womb. The condition causes menstrual pain and reduces a woman's fertility.

Women who use IVF or intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to circumvent sub-fertility are less likely to become pregnant if they have endometriosis, compared with women whose subfertility is due to problems with their fallopian tubes. It appears that endometriosis influences egg development and prevents the ovaries producing viable eggs. Treating women with GnRH agonists can reduce the extent of endrometriosis.

By conducting a systematic review of literature, Review Authors found that giving GnRH agonists to women with endometriosis for three to six months prior to fertility treatment produces more than a four-fold increase in the chance of becoming pregnant. "The chances of having a live birth are also increased, though currently the data is not strong enough to show how great that increase is," says lead author Professor Hassan Sallam, who works in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Alexandria University, Egypt.

"At the moment there is no data showing whether the treatment leads to better eggs or better acceptance of embryos by the lining of the womb," says Sallam. There is also no data to show whether one particular agonist is superior to others, or whether the therapy has differential effects on women with mild or severe endometrial disease.

http://www.thecochranelibrary.com

IVF: why one egg is better than two

2006-01-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

Women who have one embryo transferred via IVF instead of two have a higher chance of taking home a baby and face lower risks, new research has found.

A study on the outcome of IVF treatment for 406 women under the age of 38, conducted by an Australian IVF clinic, found that two-thirds of women took home babies regardless of whether they had one egg transferred or two.

But of the group who had two eggs transferred, there was a twin pregnancy rate of 34 per cent, compared with 7 per cent in the single-embryo transfer group. In the group that had two eggs transferred, five babies died from premature delivery, the study, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, also found.

Mark Bowman, clinical director of Sydney IVF, said there had been an increasing trend towards single-egg transfer and this study confirmed it was the safest and most effective option for women under 38.

"With single-egg transfer, people still have the same chance of having a baby but without exposing themselves to the significant risk of twins," Dr Bowman said.

Melbourne IVF chairman John McBain said more couples were now opting for a single-embryo transfer. He estimated that five years ago, Melbourne IVF performed twice as many two-embryo transfers as single-embryo transfers. Now, about four single-embryo transfers were performed for every three transfers of two embryos.

Monash IVF medical director Gab Kovacs said couples should be able to choose to transfer one or two embryos. He said more were opting for single-embryo transfer, and "as a matter of principle we should certainly look more seriously at putting just one back instead of two".

Professor Kovacs said that in 2005, about half the transfers at Monash IVF were single-embryo.

Watchdog warns of risks in IVF embryo testing

2006-01-29T15:10:00.000-08:00

The safety of genetic testing on IVF embryos will be questioned in a report by the watchdog Human Genetics Commission.

It is feared that babies born after screening to "weed out" embryos with genetic defects could suffer long-term effects. This week, the commission will call for follow-up studies of all children born after such tests in order to ensure the safety of future generations.

About 200 babies are said to have been born in Britain after embryo screening, which involves removing a single cell for examination.

The method is used to weed out embryos carrying serious gene disorders. But some IVF clinics are also using it to screen out embryos with slight defects. These are not known to lead to any disorder but may increase the risk of miscarriage or IVF failure.

The watchdog will caution against widespread use of the pre-implantation genetic diagnosis technique, saying the effects of removing a cell from an embryo are not yet fully understood.

Life to be easier for IVF mums

2006-01-21T06:17:00.000-08:00

THE heartache aspiring parents must endure during multiple IVF cycles could soon be over.

New technology could lift conception rates.

For thousands of couples, in vitro fertilisation restores to them the chance to have children, but it can be long, expensive and traumatic.

A recent study showed it cost women under 30 an average of $25,000 to have a baby using IVF. That rose to $183,000 for women over 42.

Kailing Wang, chief scientific officer of biotechnology company Life Therapeutics, said it had developed cell separation technology.

Their "sperm sorter" is able to isolate healthy sperm, significantly increasing the chances of conception.

"The most important feature of our technology is its ability to isolate the most healthy sperm, with minimal DNA damage and cellular contamination, in a matter of minutes," Dr Wang said.

"This is revolutionary for fertility treatment."

To get the healthy sperm, samples are placed in a separation chamber that has an electric field.

Healthy sperm are more negatively charged, and will be attracted to the positive electrodes. The unhealthy sperm will be isolated by their slower "electrophoretic mobility".

"Our technology is very applicable to all types of patient samples, including those who suffer from infertility problems," Dr Wang said.

"This technology produces better-quality sperm and enhances the success rate of reproductive treatment."

Clinical trials of the sperm sorter are expected to be held at the Westmead Fertility Centre in April next year.

Dr Steven Fleming, from the centre, said he was seeking approval for the year-long trial.

It would answer questions such as whether the new technology would make it cheaper for couples using IVF.

"I'm hoping that it's going to dispense with what I've often described as dinosaur technology," Dr Fleming said.

"(It could) speed up what we do, simplify what we do, reduce the risk inherent in what we do -- and all of those factors combined would be a significant step forward."

The Australian Medical Association's spokesman for obstetricians and gynaecology, Andrew Pesce, said he hoped the new technology would help women avoid some of the psychological traumas and stresses of IVF.

"IVF completely dominates your life for several months. Anything, if it works, would be good," Dr Pesce said.

CHANNEL TEN newsreader Tracey Spicer has spoken out about the heartbreak of infertility, warning women: "Don't leave it too late."

Spicer, 38, told Woman's Day she was desperate to have a child with her husband, Jason Thompson, but time and biology was working against her.

"I'm 38, and the quintessential career girl who nearly left it too late.

"It took us five years to conceive, and once I did finally get pregnant there were lots of complications," she tells Woman's Day in today's edition.

"Look, you may think at 33 that you're quite young, but I'm afraid that in some cases that's not young enough. I would urge women who do want a family not to leave it too late. We forget that having a child is a miracle."

Spicer and Thompson's son, Taj Jack Thompson, was born last January.

Five embryos optimal for IVF in older women

2006-01-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

By Clementine Wallace

New York (Reuters Health) - For women over 40 undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), transferring five embryos leads to the best outcomes, investigators report.

The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) currently recommends that no more than five embryos be transferred in women over 40. "However, this isn't based on very good data," Dr. Elizabeth Ginsburg told Reuters Health.

To test the validity of the SART guidelines, Ginsburg, from the Brigham and Women's Hospital Center For Reproductive Medicine, Boston, and colleagues evaluated and compared clinical outcomes when one to 11 embryos were transferred in women in this age group.

Specifically, of 863 transfers, 142 patients received exactly five embryos, 392 received fewer, and 329 received more than five embryos, according to the report in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

When fewer than five embryos were transferred, the overall pregnancy rate was 19 percent, and the live birth rate was 4percent. With five embryos, the pregnancy rate was 40 percent and the live birth rate was 23 percent.

With more than five, the overall rate was 47 percent, and the live birth rate was 22 percent -- but the risks of multiple gestations rose.

"With more than five, you increase the number of multiple pregnancies, but you don't increase the likelihood of a delivery," Ginsburg pointed out.

"Triplets have a higher risk of all kinds of bad outcomes, and twins also have higher risks of prematurity," she explained. "Women are also more likely to have diabetes and pregnancy complications with twins, especially if they're over 40."

So there is "good reason to stick with the SART recommendation, which is what is currently done in clinics," Ginsburg concluded.

SOURCE: Fertility and Sterility, December 2005.

Gene may cause infertility

2006-01-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

Scientists say dysfunction in a key gene could explain many cases of female infertility.

In studies in mice, embryos without a gene that expresses a uterine protein called CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein beta (C/EBPb) could not survive in uterine tissue or attach to the mother's blood supply.

"This protein in the mouse is also in humans," lead researcher Milan K. Bagchi, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Illinois, said in a prepared statement. "We believe it plays a critical role in human pregnancy. It is expressed in the human endometrium at a time that coincides with the time of implantation."

The report appears in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Protein key to decidualisation
According to Bagchi, C/EBPb is regulated by oestrogen and progesterone. Normally, it is driven mostly by progesterone, and is produced rapidly and in large quantities during the critical four-day implantation period in mice.

During this period, the embryo attaches to the uterine wall and eventually attaches to the mother's blood supply and forms the placenta. For a successful pregnancy, a process called decidualisation needs to occur. Decidualisation produces changes in the lining of the uterus that allow the embryo to link to the mother's blood supply. C/EBPb is necessary for decidualisation, Bagchi's team found.

"We have demonstrated very clearly in the mouse that in the absence of C/EBPb there is no decidualisation. We transferred viable mouse embryos from healthy mice into mice lacking the gene, and pregnancy failed," he said.

Study co-author Indrani C. Bagchi, a professor of veterinary biosciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Illinois, said in a statement, "This gene is expressed when the uterus is ready for embryo attachment. Its presence indicates a window for success."

May lead to better treatment
She also believes the finding could lead to more successful treatment for infertility.

"The success rate for the practice of in vitro fertilisation currently is, on average, about 25 percent," she explained. "The major problem is that the conditions occurring when the embryo is transferred often are not the best in the uterus. It's not known if the uterus is ready to accept an embryo, so often multiple embryos are transferred in hopes that one will attach. In future studies, confirmation of C/EBPb as a marker that correctly indicates uterine readiness for implantation in the human is likely to alleviate these shortcomings."

May not apply to humans
However, another expert said it is unclear whether C/EBPb will have the same function in humans as it does in mice.

"This is so far away from the human," said Dr Richard J. Paulson, a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Southern California.

He added that doctors already have effective methods of helping patients overcome uterine implantation difficulties. "In women who have had their ovaries removed, giving them oestrogen and progesterone can induce pregnancy that is just as good as it is in women who have functioning ovaries," he pointed out.

"Through the advent of assisted reproduction, and particularly egg donation, it was discovered that oestrogen and progesterone could be supplemented, and that this results in perfectly good receptivity of the uterus," Paulson said.

Paulson said the study does enhance understanding of key factors involved in pregnancy. "Its implication is uncertain in humans," he said. "We don't know if this factor is important, and in addition, we have not as yet identified a population of women who do not respond to oestrogen and progesterone. - (HealthDayNews)

Insecticides May Be Linked in Some Degree to Male Infertility

2006-01-13T07:03:00.000-08:00

Male infertility is a complex problem with numerous possible causes. Sometimes the cause is related to a single reason and other times it may be associated with a combination of factors. A new study now suggests that exposure to non-persistent, or short-lasting, insecticides may be one of those factors.

According to a statement made to Reuters Health by Dr. John D. Meeker, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and lead author of the study: "Environmental exposure to chlorpyrifos or its metabolite (TCPY) may be associated with reduced levels of circulating testosterone in adult men. A decline in testosterone throughout a population could potentially lead to adverse reproductive health outcomes.

Previously, a commonly used household insecticide, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restricted the use of chlorpyrifos use in homes in 2000 after research revealed it can be harmful to the central nervous system.

Despite the EPA restrictions, however, there is evidence that individuals are still being exposed to the toxin. In fact, the Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals found that over 90% of U.S. men had detectable levels TCPY in their urine.

A previous report by Dr. .Meeker and colleagues found that higher levels of 1-naphthol (1N) in men's urine are linked to decreased sperm count and increased DNA damage in sperm cells.

1N is a breakdown product of the compound naphthalene, found in cigarette smoke, diesel fuel and other combustion byproducts, and carbaryl, a lawn and garden insecticide known as Sevin.

Dr. Meeker and researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta looked at the link between TCPY and 1N, and reproductive hormone levels in 268 men from an infertility clinic between 2000 and 2003.

According to the report published in the journal Epidemiology, men with higher urine levels of TCPY and 1N had lower levels of the sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone levels decreased along with increasing levels of TCPY, revealing that the association with TCPY was dose-dependent.

The report also noted that higher TCPY levels were also associated with a decreased free androgen index, an indication of lower testosterone concentrations.

Dr. Meeker noted that: "Although the decrements in testosterone related to TCPY were relatively small they may be of public health concern because of widespread human exposure among men.” He added that: "This is the first human evidence of an association between chlorpyrifos or its metabolite (TCPY) and testosterone levels, so other studies would be needed to substantiate our findings."

Infertility Leads To Surrogacy Minefield

2006-01-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

WHEN an egg meets the sperm, the successful seed then releases its tightly coiled package of DNA, which fuses with the egg's own DNA and sets in motion a series of genetic events that culminate, nine months later, in the birth of a new human being.

That is how it is supposed to work.

And for hundreds of thousands of years, without anyone knowing quite how or why, it has worked — well enough to perpetuate the species, populate the planet and bring the joy and responsibility of children to countless generations of parents.

But what if it doesn't work? What if egg meets sperm and nothing happens? Human sexual reproduction can be a heartbreakingly unreliable process when the couples are infertile.

Though bio-science has made it possible to create a baby outside the human body in a lab by using a man's sperm and a woman's egg, the cold scientific experiment shut many couples out in the search for a woman willing to serve as a surrogate mother and produce for them a heir.

Read more at Infertility Leads To Surrogacy Minefield

IVF sperm 'contamination' concern

2006-01-09T07:21:00.001-08:00

A Spanish team mixed mouse sperm with E.coli bacteria to see if accidental genetic modification could take place.

They then injected the sperm into mice eggs and found some resulting embryos did indeed contain an E.coli gene, New Scientist reports.

A UK expert said no such contamination had been known in human IVF, and was unlikely to cause ill health anyway.

The team from INIA, the Spanish agricultural research agency, used a procedure called ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, where an individual sperm is injected directly into the egg.

ICSI is used to help men who have low sperm counts or sperm which does not move very well.

It accounts for around half of IVF procedures in many countries, including the UK and US.

But scientists have also been investigating using ICSI to make genetically modified animals, by mixing DNA with sperm before injecting it into the eggs.

IVF sperm 'contamination' concern

2006-01-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

A Spanish team mixed mouse sperm with E.coli bacteria to see if accidental genetic modification could take place.

They then injected the sperm into mice eggs and found some resulting embryos did indeed contain an E.coli gene, New Scientist reports.

A UK expert said no such contamination had been known in human IVF, and was unlikely to cause ill health anyway.

The team from INIA, the Spanish agricultural research agency, used a procedure called ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, where an individual sperm is injected directly into the egg.

ICSI is used to help men who have low sperm counts or sperm which does not move very well.

It accounts for around half of IVF procedures in many countries, including the UK and US.

But scientists have also been investigating using ICSI to make genetically modified animals, by mixing DNA with sperm before injecting it into the eggs.

Read more at IVF sperm 'contamination' concern

Parents of IVF babies remain quiet on fertility issue

2006-01-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

WHILE one Australian baby in 35 is now conceived through IVF, many parents still fear a stigma is attached to fertility problems.

Experts say that while about 10,000 women each year undergo the treatment nationally in an industry worth $40 million, many prefer to keep it a secret.

"There's a lot of secrecy around assisted conception and it's not entirely clear what percentage know their origins," said early childhood development expert Frances Gibson, who has conducted several studies of women on IVF programs at Macquarie University.

"Some people aren't sure how to put the words to it, how they will describe it."

As with adoption, Dr Gibson said children should know early about how they came into the world.

Telling children as soon as they started asking questions, often by the age of three, made it easier for them to discuss later on. By adolescence it was harder to alter their own sense of identity with new concepts, she said.

Life to be easier for IVF mums

2006-01-09T06:41:00.000-08:00

THE heartache aspiring parents must endure during multiple IVF cycles could soon be over.

New technology could lift conception rates.

For thousands of couples, in vitro fertilisation restores to them the chance to have children, but it can be long, expensive and traumatic.

A recent study showed it cost women under 30 an average of $25,000 to have a baby using IVF. That rose to $183,000 for women over 42.

Kailing Wang, chief scientific officer of biotechnology company Life Therapeutics, said it had developed cell separation technology.

Their "sperm sorter" is able to isolate healthy sperm, significantly increasing the chances of conception.

Read more at Life to be easier for IVF mums

Complication More in Women Having IVF Treatment

2005-11-29T19:58:00.000-08:00

A report on IVF has emphasized that women having IVF treatment subject themselves to more risks and complications from the hormonal treatment to conceive a baby.

In-Vitro fertilization (IVF) has been very successful in women who are infertile due to problems with their eggs or tubes. In the procedure a donated egg and a sperm is fertilized outside the body and the product is then implanted inside the womb of a woman. The egg can sometimes be of a third party, a relative or sometime can originate from the woman herself.

‘The Sun’ newspaper has recently reported that a woman has succumbed to toxic shock after IVF treatment at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester.

A report published in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ daily in the UK features that one in seven women who receives IVF treatment maybe hospitalized with complication that can be serious and sometimes life threatening. The study done by a Finnish group emphasized that this risk was double when compared to natural pregnancies.

The complications include miscarriages, bleeding, ectopic pregnancy and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. The study looked at the results from the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health in Helsinki. The survey had nearly 20,000 women who either underwent IVF or ovulation stimulation to donate eggs.

Infertility treatment's high price tag prompts doctors to deliver new financing options

2005-11-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Infertility specialists are turning to loan programs, discount packages, shared-risk plans and money-back guarantees to attract patients for whom the high cost of treatment has been out of reach.

"You begin to feel more like a car salesman," said Dr. Ronald Wilbois, medical director of the Infertility and IVF Center. "I sometimes ask myself, 'My God, what has medicine come to?' But the reality is that new business approaches are almost mandatory for survival."

The Infertility and IVF Center, a private clinic with offices at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in Town & Country, now offers a loan program through Capital One Bank. It allows patients to pay off their treatment costs over five years at an interest rate based on their credit score.

More than 6 million women and their partners in the United States struggle with infertility, defined as the inability to become pregnant after a year of trying, according to the most recent estimates available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That translates to about 10 percent of the reproductive-age female population.

Like other elective services, however, infertility treatments typically are not covered by insurance. Instead, most patients are required to pay the costs up front and out of pocket, and it's common for expenses to quickly rise into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Doctors assess health risks of multiple births from IVF

2005-11-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

ELEANOR HALL: Australia's leading fertility specialists are meeting in Melbourne today to consider reducing the rate of high-risk multiple births arising from IVF treatment.

About 20 per cent of IVF births are multiple births. Not only can such pregnancies be more dangerous for the mother, but twins and triplets are also more likely to be born prematurely with all the associated health problems.

But many couples using IVF are prepared to accept the risks of having more than one embryo transferred in order to maximise their chances of having children.

In Melbourne, Lynn Bell reports.

LYNN BELL: Kellie Boyce and her husband Craig had nine attempts at IVF, over five years before having their first son Jesse.

Then, after two more attempts, Kellie Boyce became pregnant with twins.

KELLIE BOYCE: You're told from the outset it's a high-risk pregnancy, which is… I mean, for most people I think when they're pregnant they're very scared for their pregnancy and for their baby for, you know, a million different reasons.

With IVF I think you're 10 times more terrified something will happen because it's been so hard to get pregnant.

LYNN BELL: She says after so many years of trying she was keen to have a number of embryos transferred during her IVF treatment.

KELLIE BOYCE: I would've let them put six in me. That's how… that's how irrational you can be, and I would never want to say that to someone doing IVF, because you don't like to be told that you're being irrational, but I… you know, in my secret thoughts I would've taken any amount that they would put in. So it really is up to the doctors to be responsible.

LYNN BELL: The Director of Melbourne IVF, Professor John McBain, says multiple births can present risks for the mother and the children, and for that reason Australian IVF clinics will no longer transfer more than two embryos during a cycle.

JOHN MCBAIN: Many of our patients come along hoping for a twin pregnancy because they've had so many years of having no children, and that seems an ideal outcome.

They're given some very frank information about the potential complications of twins, and then they will still either be as emphatic that they want two embryos transferred, or they will say I really don't want in any circumstances to be put at risk of having a twin pregnancy.

LYNN BELL: Professor McBain is one of the speakers at today's conference, on preventing multiple gestation in IVF.

JOHN MCBAIN: It's a timely thing to do, to look at what are the positives for patients and for the society of having single embryo transfer, and what are the positives for our patients for having double embryo transfer, because there are positives on each side and it's a matter of having an informed debate to find a balance.

LYNN BELL: Earlier this year, the Federal Government appointed an independent committee to look at the effectiveness of Assisted Reproductive Technology, and to review Medicare funding for IVF.

Professor David de Kretser, from the Monash Institute of Medical Research, will chair today's meeting, and he says it's important that the current policy continues.

DAVID DE KRETSER: It's the government policy that exists today of having no limitation on the number of cycles of stimulation and IVF that's used, and that is again a very positive thing.

And so I believe the conference will urge the Government to keep up that policy, and to remove financial pressures on the couple to transfer more embryos than are necessary.

ELEANOR HALL: And that's Professor David De Kretser from the Monash Institute of Medical Research, ending that report from Lynn Bell in Melbourne

Infertility Stress

2005-11-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Stress: the state when the body is not functioning as a coherent and unified whole. Given this definition, when in a state of stress, the body’s physiological functions fail to meet the individual’s needs and desires. The individual and their body go out of alignment and fail to communicate and work together.

When infertility exists it’s a clear sign that one’s body is not cooperating with that individual’s desire to conceive a child and start a family. This only enhances the overall stress level. The net result is that the stress feeds on itself causing furhter stress. I call this loop "infertility stress".

Infertility stress sends the body and its reproductive capacity further out of alignment with the individual in that body creating feelings of helplessness and despair.

As a medical researcher and stress expert for over 15 years it has been my experience that this misalignment is the result of the beliefs we carry about ourselves, others, our lives, our situation etc. Beliefs conditioned in us throughout our lives wrestle control of our bodies away from us.

When a belief serves us well that’s all well and good. However when it limits us in our life it can make one feel permanently enslaved. The discouragement that ensues only furthers one’s sense of enslavement and disempowerment. Limitations can manifest as some of the following:

Being too attached to the outcome

Feeling desperate about conceiving a child

Feeling helpless and dependent on others

The fear that the next pregnancy test will be negative

Feeling inadequate

Feeling like a failure

Feeling defective

Feeling unworthy

The need to please one’s partner

The fear that time is running out

And more…

If you feel any of the above apply to you notice what the effect on your stress level is.

I have developed a new Mind/Body modality called the Mind Resonance Process™ which helps you release all limiting and negative beliefs that separate you from your body allowing you to begin reclaiming control over your entire being.

The net result is that you can again begin to love your body, reunite with it and gently guide it to where you most desire.

Dr. Nick Arrizza is trained in Chemical Engineering, Business Management & Leadership, Medicine and Psychiatry. He is an Energy Psychiatrist, Healer, Key Note Speaker,Editor of a New Ezine Called "Spirituality And Science" (which is requesting high quality article submissions) Author of "Esteem for the Self: A Manual for Personal Transformation" (available in ebook format on his web site), Stress Management Coach, Peak Performance Coach & Energy Medicine Researcher, Specializes in Life and Executive Performance Coaching, is the Developer of a powerful new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that helps build physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being by helping to permanently release negative beliefs, emotions, perceptions and memories. He holds live workshops, international telephone coaching sessions and international teleconference workshops on Physical. Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Well Being.

Infertility and Artificial Light

2005-11-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

Artificial light while sleeping appears to interfere with the production of melatonin, which is a hormone associated with ovarian activity. Research shows that women’s cycles normalize when artificial light is eliminated while sleeping. Eliminating the artificial light seems to allow the hormonal system to reset itself, so to speak, and take a fresh start. Couples who were thought to be infertile have been able to conceive by eliminating artificial light while sleeping.

Many women find that menstrual cycles are easier and more harmonious if they follow the cycles of the moon: menstruation on the new moon, ovulation on the full moon. Because we are surrounded by so much artificial light, even while sleeping, it can be a challenge to get in tune with the moon’s cycles. Women report being able to gradually harmonize their cycles with the cycles of the moon by sleeping in total darkness, except for one or two nights at the time of the full moon. If you want to try sleeping in total darkness, make some dark shades for your bedroom windows and make sure there is no light of any kind from your clock radio, from under your door, etc.

If you want to try harmonizing your cycle with the moon’s cycles, open your shades for one night during the full moon, and sleep in the moon’s light. If this is not possible, get a nightlight and use it only during the night of the full moon. You may have to continue this practice for some months, so be patient. You may enjoy seeing your cycles gradually respond to Grandmother Moon’s light.

Marie Zenack is a teacher of fertility awareness and a facilitator of women’s rites of passage. She lives in a spiritual community in rural Southeast Iowa, where she spends her time teaching, writing, meditating, gardening, cooking and enjoying her grandchildren. http://www.menstrual-cycle-period.com/

Infertility specialists boost marketing

2005-11-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Infertility specialists are turning to loan programs, discount packages, shared-risk plans and money-back guarantees to attract patients for whom the high cost of treatment has been out of reach.

Doctors sidestep laws to import stem cell 'bank'

2005-11-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

A vast "bank" of human stem cells is to be brought to Britain, bringing hope of new cures for fatal genetic diseases but fuelling ethical concerns about embryo research.

More than 140 stem cell lines - the building blocks of human life - have been created by specialists in the United States and allied clinics in Russia, Cyprus and Belize using donated IVF embryos.

The private bank, the largest of its kind in the world, will be made available without charge to British researchers hoping to find cures for inherited diseases including the degenerative disorder Huntington's, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and the blood disorder beta-thalassaemia.

A pioneering method of "tailoring" stem cells to a particular patient, which avoids the need for embryo cloning, will also be brought to Britain.

Age limit on IVF

2005-11-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

Women aged 43 or older will no longer be accepted for IVF treatment at Westmead Hospital after an audit showed their chances of having a baby with the procedure was less than 1 per cent.

The policy - which is believed to be the first formal upper age limit in a Sydney clinic - was more humane than allowing women to continue with treatment that would almost inevitably fail, said Howard Smith, the director of Westmead Fertility Centre.

Dr Smith said of the 250 women aged 43 and over the clinic had treated over five years, only two had had a baby. "We said, 'Look, we need to be open and honest … that the probability of a live birth was extremely small.' There were more who got pregnant but those ended in miscarriage."

Albany IVF joins IntegraMed network

2005-11-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Albany IVF, an Albany, N.Y., practice specializing in reproductive endocrinology and infertility care services, has joined the network of IntegraMed America Inc.

IntegraMed (Nasdaq: INMD), which is located in Purchase, N.Y., provides business services to a national network of 25 fertility centers. The company also distributes pharmaceutical products and treatment financing programs directly to consumers.

Peter Horvath, who founded Albany IVF in 1997, said offering IntegraMed's Shared Risk product will enable Albany IVF to serve a broader array of patients in a way that is both "more affordable and more comforting to them." Patients can qualify for up to six in vitro fertilization cycles and will get the majority of their investment refunded if they don't become pregnant.

"In addition, we receive access to the full array of IntegraMed's services and have our name associated with some of the most prestigious fertility practices in the nation," Horvath said.

Could an international stem cell consortium make San Francisco the center of an emerging market in human ova?

2005-11-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

IT'S CLOSE TO impossible these days to avoid the debate over the ethics of stem cell research. George W. Bush raised the curtain on his presidency in 2001 by barring federal funding for research on new stem cell lines. Last month, South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk announced a global initiative designed, in part, to circumvent some nations' squeamishness about this promising research.

But for all the discussion, the origins of those controversial embryonic stem cells are rarely acknowledged.

"It's as if these embryos just came from nowhere," Susan Berke Fogel, head of the nascent California activist group the Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research (PCARR), told the Bay Guardian.

Actually, they come from the eggs of women – living, breathing women who will have to undergo risky procedures to have their eggs removed in the name of science.

That's because scientists have placed much of their hope in customized embryonic cells they grow themselves, using a technique called nuclear transfer. The process involves extracting genetic material from an easy-to-obtain skin cell, placing it inside an oocyte that has had its genetic material removed, and then prompting the cell to develop into a clonal embryo, from which stem cells can be extracted.

What's not evident from that description – and is so often left out of such explanations – is that an oocyte is a human egg.

That may not seem like a big deal: Women have been offering their eggs for use in fertility treatments for a quarter century. But experts say the prospect of hundreds of women undergoing egg extraction in order to supply researchers with custom-made stem cells raises novel ethical and medical questions.

Many women's health advocates believe egg extraction causes medical problems that the largely unregulated fertility industry has never been forced to address – and they worry that if this research is not handled carefully, there could be significant health risks to donors.

Bioethicists also warn that great care must be taken to ensure that donors don't have an unrealistic idea of the impact their donated ova could have on ailing friends or family.

Some even fear that without careful regulation, market forces could someday drive this whole process – and that low-income women would bear the brunt of this commercialized market in human eggs.

Until now, experts concerned about egg donation have been focused on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was set up by last year's Proposition 71 and is poised to distribute $3 billion in grants for stem cell research. Assuming the CIRM would effectively be in charge of how egg donation happens here in California, these activists have lobbied the institute to establish strict donor guidelines. Although many of the stickiest issues have yet to be worked out, both the advocates and the institute's officials have been feeling pretty good about their progress.

But nearly all were taken by surprise last month when Hwang's team announced its plan for an international network of labs that will supply new stem cell lines to researchers around the world. Dubbed the World Stem Cell Hub, the consortium will include a lab right here in the Bay Area, which could begin collecting ova from local women as early as January. And it would not automatically be subject to CIRM rules.

What will keep lab operators from offering high prices for eggs? And how can we be sure local women will get an accurate sense of the risks?

Scientists close to producing baby from two dads

2005-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

IT IS a prospect worthy of a science fiction B-movie: male couples, women past the menopause, infertile couples and even celibate clergy producing their own children.

Yet this startling idea is now a serious scientific prospect, say researchers. Breakthroughs in stem-cell technology could soon lead to `non-traditional' parents having their own offspring, not always with the help of a woman's genes, some scientists saying within the next four years. The new technology currently falls outside existing controls on human fertilisation science.

"As yet the government has failed to address all the possibilities this technology opens up," said Anna Smajdor, an ethicist at Imperial College London.

Yet developments are moving so fast it is critical that a discussion of the full ethical implications of the technology be launched, she believes.

"There are no existing governmental insights or guidance as to how ethical issues related to these areas might be approached. It is something we need to address."

"You don't have to be infertile to have an interest in reproductive technology," she said last week. "This could mean anyone can become a parent; women after the menopause, gay couples, celibate men."

Pregnancy Risks: IVF or Something Else to Blame?

2005-11-15T08:23:00.001-08:00

Women who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive are more likely to face various pregnancy-related risks like preeclampsia—maternal high blood pressure associated with pregnancy—and placental abnormalities. That's the conclusion of research released by a group of international medical experts.¹

Embedded Risks Possible
But some doctors not connected to the study stress that these pregnancy-related risks are typical of women who had difficulty achieving pregnancy in the first place. "It should not be surprising that women who had a medical problem that made it difficult for them to get pregnant also had problems once they became pregnant," explained William Gibbons, MD, President of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), in a written statement.

"The other complicating factor may be age," said Gibbons, who is a reproductive endocrinologist at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia. "Women who undergo infertility treatments are often older than most women who become pregnant. Age, in and of itself, is a risk factor for a more complicated pregnancy."

According to a press release about the study, it's unclear what the underlying reasons for the adverse pregnancy outcomes may be.

Link Found
The researchers found no association between the use of ART and chromosome abnormalities or birth defects in the children conceived, nor ART and low birthweight in the babies.

However, they did find a link between the use of ART and a higher risk of having an unfavorable pregnancy outcome, especially for those who underwent IVF. Those using IVF were six times as likely to develop certain placental abnormalities like placenta previa, a condition in which the placenta completely or partially covers the cervical opening. IVF patients also had two-and-a-half times the risk of developing preeclampsia, as well as a condition known as placental abruption, which involves the premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall. Women undergoing IVF were also nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to have undergone a C-section compared to those who used other types of ART or no ART at all.

Miscarriage risk was higher, as well, for those who underwent ovulation induction, the research team found.

The Positive Side
Despite these discoveries, the investigators stressed that the "chances of having a healthy child through ART are, overall, extremely high."

Why is understanding the reality of these risks important? The investigators stress that this knowledge will help doctors counsel patients considering ART about the possibility of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

"We are pleased to see that the study re-affirmed that the children born thanks to these technologies are no more likely to have problems than other children," Gibbons said. "It is important that patients who conceive with the help of assisted reproductive technologies discuss this with their obstetricians."

Risks: Study looks at reproductive technology

2005-11-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

A study in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology finds that assisted reproductive technology (ART) does not increase risk for certain serious adverse outcomes. The study also confirms earlier findings that in vitro fertilization (IVF), the most common form of ART, raises the risk of some less-severe complications.

Researchers followed 36,062 mothers taking part in a separate federally funded study between 1999 and 2002. There were three groups: 34,286 in the natural conception group, 554 in the IVF group and 1,222 in the ovulation-induction group (whose members were given medications to stimulate ovulation).

The study - which involved only the births of single babies, not twins, triplets or other multiples - concluded that IVF "does not seem to be linked to an increase in major morbidities of pregnancy that include having a very small baby, having a baby with a birth defect as a result of treatment or having a baby that's born with a chromosome problem as a result of treatment," said Tracy Shevell, the lead study author and a perinatologist at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut.

The IVF group had a higher risk for some less-serious problems, but it's not known if this was because of IVF or an unknown infertility-related cause, Shevell said. Compared with the control group, those who had the IVF procedure were 2.7 times more likely to develop preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced high blood pressure), 2.4 times more likely to have a placental abruption (where the placenta separates prematurely), six times more likely to have placenta previa (where the placenta implants too low in uterus), and 2.3 times more likely to have a Caesarean delivery.

Group seeks to make IVF more affordable in Nigeria

2005-11-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

In response to problems of the high cost of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in the country, fertility experts under the aegis of the Nigeria Fertility Society (NFS) in collaboration with the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) are seeking ways of provide low-cost IVF to all Nigerians who require it.

Speaking during the first ever international workshop on “Assisted Conception” Chairman of the NFS Scientific Committee, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, in his paper entitled “The State of ART of Assisted Conception and the possibility of low - cost IVF in Nigeria” said IVF has come to stay in Nigeria. He noted that Nigeria has recorded great successes from IVF and that presently there are 12 IVF centers in the country observed that ART has recorded an overall success of 30 per cent pregnancy.

His words: “About 12,000 babies have been born with the aid of this technology worldwide but the very pertinent question in all of these is how many Nigerians without privilege can really enjoy it.” He recalled that between January 1995 and March 2005 the procedures and protocols for IVF programme set up and patient cares were evaluated and the protocols and procedures that can be cost saving were examined.

In his own paper entitled, “How realistic is low-cost IVF in an Unindustrialized sub region” Vice President of the NFS, Dr. John Esangbdo said IVF treatment may become widely acceptable only if third party providers understand the inseparability of diseases peculiar to women’s well being and infertility.

NFS President, Prof. Osato Giwa Osagie in his submission, urged government to establish public sector IVF units in selected hospitals as well as set up foundations and support groups to assist clients while encouraging all practitioners to offer discounted cycles to selected bonafide clients with financial constraints.

Little-discussed problem affects 15 percent of couples

2005-11-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the least discussed and supported health problem affecting Georgians today is not AIDS or cancer, but infertility.
Infertility affects 6.1 million people in the U.S., which is 15 percent of reproductive age couples attempting to have a child. But unlike cancer or any other major disease, infertile people often receive little compassion or support from friends or family.
“(Infertility) is not seen as cancer or anything as horrendous as that,” said Janet Eason, former president of Resolve Georgia, a national nonprofit infertility association serving couples dealing with fertility issues. “People don’t see it as a disease, just as ‘tough luck,’ yet it can be so devastating to a marriage, family and one’s self esteem.”
It’s stressful to be infertile in a fertile world. Many men may end up struggling with masculinity issues while women may feel their bodies aren’t capable of fully functioning and are inadequate, said Sandra Fricks, a licensed marriage and family therapist who practices privately in Lawrenceville and through Covenant Counseling Center.
“When people decide to get pregnant, they’re ready and no one expects to have to consult an infertility specialist for the most part,” Fricks said.
Before couples seek fertility counseling, experts concur they should attempt a pregnancy with unprotected intercourse for anywhere between six months and a year. There are many factors that can contribute to infertility, such as smoking, drinking, acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and being overweight, said Dr. Slayden, a physician with Reproductive Biology Associates with offices also at Gwinnett Medical Center.
Although not an issue with men, a woman’s age is a factor, too. From birth, women lose eggs each year, so by the time she tops her cake with 35 candles, a woman’s egg bank is markedly less than that of a 21-year-old’s.
Once a couple decides to visit a fertility specialist there are a few options and a few hurdles.
One of the hurdles is insurance. Insurance often will refuse to cover any procedures, especially in Georgia said Slayden. Thirty percent of his patients have coverage for routine therapy, such as fertility pills while 20 percent have coverage for intrauterine insemination. And while those therapies are better than nothing, the pregnancy rates are lower and don’t help everyone.

Doctor on cutting edge of new developments in fertility

2005-11-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ariel Revel is fascinated by fertility.

A member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital in Jerusalem, Revel has been working on fertility in cancer patients since 2000. Recently, he spoke at the Ector County Medical Society meeting at Odessa Country Club.

"We're very much interested in preserving the ovaries of young women about to undergo cancer treatment," Revel said in an interview. He does this by freezing the woman's ovaries and later retransplanting them.

"The basic idea of this research is to find methods to preserve the fertility of young cancer patients," he said.

While it kills cancer, chemotherapy also kills a woman's eggs and the eggs don't regenerate the way hair or blood cells do after treatment, he said. This is especially frequent in patients undergoing treatment for leukemia and sarcomas.

"There are currently about one million cancer patients in the United States whose fertility issues are significant, meaning they will need (alternative) methods to have children artificially," Revel said.

At his hospital, about 100 women have preserved their ovaries to be retransplanted after cancer treatment.

"I believe this is a very significant issue, both for medical purposes É (and) in my cases it also has important psychological impact," because both the woman and her family know she may be able to have children in the future, he said. This tends to allow the woman to tolerate treatment "a lot better."

Revel was in Odessa last week as part of "Mediscope," an annual health information series focusing on the most current medical advances in Israel. His presentation last week was sponsored by Medical Center Hospital, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the Ector County Medical Society and Ector County Medical Society Alliance. The title was "Medicine in the Eye of the Storm: Cutting-Edge Research and Patient Care at Hadassah Hospital."

"Fertility to me is the most fascinating field in medicine," Revel said. "I think the field requires a deep knowledge of biology. It's at the forefront of medical and scientific knowledge and there are always new techniques."

It also interests him because it helps patients create a family -- "something that gives me lots of strength and happiness in the work that I do."

"In our life, in history, we have seen a lot of death, a lot of disease. The possibility to create life is something not possible in any other field. It is truly making life. Many patients would have no children without our help today."

Research Brings New Insights for the Treatment of Male Infertility

2005-11-14T08:38:00.001-08:00

New research is expanding what we know about the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of infertility in men.

In one recent paper, a team from New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City demonstrated the effectiveness of microsurgical sperm extraction and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) -- techniques developed by Weill Cornell scientists -- in restoring fertility to men previously considered sterile due to Klinefelter syndrome.

And in a commentary published in the October issue of Fertility and Sterility, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Urologist-in-Chief and Weill Cornell Urology Chair Dr. Peter N. Schlegel compared the ease and efficacy of available sperm DNA tests.

Dr. Schlegel was also senior researcher on the study on Klinefelter syndrome, just published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Both the Department of Urology and Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, led by Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, collaborated on the study.

"Klinefelter syndrome affects about one in 500 or 600 men," Dr. Schlegel explained. "It occurs when the men are born with an extra X chromosome -- for reasons that are still unclear, this can dramatically lower the number of sperm in the testes. In fact, counts are so low that sperm don't leave the body, and these men were long considered sterile and untreatable."

Using a technique first described by his team in 1998 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Schlegel used microsurgery to detect viable sperm within the testes of men affected by the syndrome. Once detected, this sperm was extracted and then introduced into a mature egg using a high-tech form of in vitro fertilization called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), previously developed by Weill Cornell scientist Dr. Gianpiero Palermo of Rosenwaks' team.

This latest study confirms the efficacy of that breakthrough technology, Dr. Schlegel said. Working with 42 men with Klinefelter syndrome, his team first used drugs called aromatase inhibitors to help boost the men's sperm production. Twenty-nine of the patients had sufficient sperm found in their testes for extraction, which were then injected into mature eggs, resulting in 18 pregnancies and 21 live births.

"The treatment allows you to use very small numbers of sperm, and it works because of surgical techniques developed here at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell," Dr. Schlegel said. "It's given new hope to men who otherwise would never have been able to become biological fathers."

In vitro field facing slowdown

2005-11-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

The ''test-tube baby" industry seems to have grown up.

For more than two decades, the field expanded explosively, revolutionizing a whole generation's concept of babymaking and producing more than 1 million children worldwide who would otherwise never have been conceived.

But now, fertility doctors in Boston and across the country say they are seeing a slowdown in the growth of in vitro fertilization, or IVF. At Brigham and Women's Hospital, for instance, long renowned for its reproductive care, infertility patient volume failed to grow in the last year for the first time in recent memory.

The number of infertile people is still growing, said Joseph C. Isaacs, president of Resolve, the national infertility association. Soon-to-be-released federal figures show that there were more than 6 million infertile people in 1995, compared with 7.3 million at last count in 2002.

But the growth rates of IVF are falling in part, specialists say, because of the aging of baby boomers: The youngest members of that great demographic wave are now in their 40s and starting to think more about their 401(k) than IVF.

Also, because IVF is getting more efficient, patients more often become parents after just one or two cycles now, rather than trying again and again. The better the clinics do, the faster they lose their patients.

And the cost of IVF, which can run more than $10,000 per cycle and is not covered by insurance in most states, is driving people away during uncertain economic times, Isaacs said.

Lack of means is a constant theme among callers to Resolve's infertility help line, said its coordinator, Davina Fankhauser. She can relate: She is now 17 weeks pregnant through IVF, but she and her husband went through eight years of infertility treatments -- stopping short of IVF because they could not afford it -- before moving to Massachusetts, where they found that insurance would cover it.

''I have to say the economy made me not try, actually, until I moved to Massachusetts," she said.

In 1987, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate that insurance companies cover some infertility treatments. But Isaacs and others worry that current efforts on Beacon Hill to overhaul the health insurance system may end up stripping infertile couples of that guarantee. Infertility coverage is one of the mandates in play in the debate over how to get more people insured.

''If there's a mandated program with a bull's-eye on its forehead, it's IVF," said John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, an advocacy group.

Fertility clinic testing new in vitro technique

2005-11-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

A local fertility clinic is testing a surprisingly low-tech technique in women undergoing in vitro fertilization.

The usual method is to grow embryos in a temperature-controlled incubator for a few days. In the new technique, eggs are fertilized in a 2-inch plastic capsule, which is placed in the woman's vagina.

After three days, the capsule is removed, and one or more embryos are implanted in the woman's uterus.

The capsule technique eliminates the hassle and expense of incubators. There also are important psychological benefits, said Veronica Jordan, CEO of Medelle Corp., which makes the device.

"Having fertilization occur in their body is a motivating factor for women," Jordan said. "They feel more involved and more connected with the procedure."

Medelle is funding a clinical trial of the capsule at several fertility centers, including IVF 1 in Chicago and Naperville.

The capsule in vitro technique was developed in the 1980s. Studies published in the 1990s found that pregnancy rates were comparable to traditional IVF techniques. But there were technical difficulties with the capsule, and the technique didn't catch on.

Jordan said Medelle has developed a capsule that does not have the technical problems of the old device. The new capsule is called INVOcell.

INVOcell contains a culture medium to grow as many as 10 embryos. (Any embryos that aren't implanted are frozen for possible future use.)

Although INVOcell is leak-proof, carbon dioxide can diffuse into it. The vagina provides nearly the perfect temperature and carbon dioxide level for embryos, said IVF 1 medical director Dr. Randy Morris.

But some fertility doctors are skeptical. Growing embryos is a delicate process, and a low-tech method might result in lower-quality embryos and reduced pregnancy rates, said Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director of the Center for Human Reproduction in New York.

"Logically, this cannot work as well as a well-calibrated incubator with well-qualified technicians," Gleicher said. "I would love to be proven wrong."

INVOcell is kept in place with a diaphragm. An earlier study found that some women experience slight discomfort, while others feel nothing. A woman can take showers while carrying the capsule, but she should not take baths, go swimming or engage in sexual intercourse or vigorous exercise, Jordan said.

If the new study shows INVOcell is safe and effective, Medelle will seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to market the device late next year.

The study will include infertile women younger than 35 whose mates have normal sperm counts. Participants will receive free in vitro fertilization, which normally costs about $12,000.

For more information, visit www.ivf1.com or call (630) 357-6540.