Birth of first UK baby screened for genetic breast cancer

The first baby to be screened for alterations in the breast cancer-causing gene, BRCA1, was born last week. The child was at risk from inheriting the gene from her father, who has women in three generations of his family who have been diagnosed with breast caner in their twenties as a result of inheriting the [...]

The success rates of gestational surrogacy cycles

In India, especially in Mumbai, gestational surrogacy is helping many couples have children, which may not have been possible in the past.
At Rotunda, we have tripled our gestational surrogacy cycles in 2008, in conjunction with achieving exceptionally high success rates. Our success rates with fresh surrogacy cycles average around 50% per embryo transfer, and [...]

France: Woman, 59, is oldest mother of triplets

A 59-year-old Frenchwoman has given birth by Caesarian section to two boys and a girl, who are in good health, the Paris hospital treating her said on Monday last.
“Everything went smoothly,” said a spokesman at Cochin hospital where the triplets were born overnight Saturday.
The woman, of Vietnamese origin, is thought to have resorted to a [...]

Equal access to IVF for lesbian couples and single women

New laws that grant lesbian couples and single women equal access to IVF have been passed by MPs voting in Victoria’s Parliament. The Assisted Reproductive Treatment bill was approved by 47 votes to 34, in a three day debate that lasted in the early hours. It will now be debated in the Upper House before [...]

Prognosis ‘encouraging’ after total fertilization failure in IVF and ICSI

More than 40 percent of patients who experience total fertilization failure after an IVF cycle have a baby at a later attempt, researchers report.
Total fertilization failure after IVF or ICSI can be very frustrating for patients and clinicians alike.
Little information has been available about patients’ chances of success in the future or how changes in [...]

Ovarian stimulation before IVF ‘does not influence birthweight’

German investigators claim they have produced “robust” evidence that ovarian stimulation for IVF does not influence the birthweight of resulting babies.
Singleton children conceived through IVF have lower birthweights, on average, than their naturally conceived counterparts, and it has been hypothesized that ovarian stimulation could be a cause.
To find out, Georg Griesinger (University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein) [...]

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is an in vitro fertilization procedure in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg; this procedure is most commonly used to overcome male infertility problems. With conventional IVF, one can expect approximately 75% of the oocytes (eggs) to fertilize if they are healthy and the sperm parameters are [...]

‘Internet sperm’ founder jailed

John Gonzalez, the founding director of a controversial UK-based online company – ‘ManNotIncluded.com’, which delivered fresh sperm to women for DIY-insemination – was sentenced last week at the Wood Green Crown Court in London to sixteen months incarceration for five counts of fraudulent activities. Judge Juliet May QC said that he had ’siphoned off thousands [...]

Smoking damages female fertility

Heavy smoking may reduce a woman’s fertility by directly affecting the uterus, the results of a new study indicate.

According to a team of European researchers, it has long been known that smoking affects female fertility. However this is believed to be the first study to show that the habit actually damages the lining of the [...]

Delaying motherhood and defying nature

The average age of women seeking fertility help in Australia has increased from 35.2 years old in 2002 to 35.6 years old in 2006, according to a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The report showed that record numbers of women over 40 were undergoing fertility treatment – rising from 14.3 [...]