Accelerated fertility treatment leads to shortened time to pregnancy and cost savings

A major new trial recently published in the journal Fertility and Sterility shows that for couples beginning infertility treatments, an accelerated path to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) can offer a shorter time to pregnancy, cost savings of nearly $10,000, and a lowered risk of multiple births.
For the first time, these results demonstrate that the long held [...]

Céline Dion Pregnant with Embryo Frozen for Eight Years

As wake-up calls go, this one was hard to beat. Thérèse Dion was asleep in her room at the five-star Hotel Le Bristol in Paris, where she had gone to film episodes of the cooking show she hosts on Canadian TV, when the phone rang at 7 a.m. on Jan. 25. On the line, more [...]

Debate Over Genetic Screening of Embryos as New Tests Emerge

As more families opt for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to screen embryos for inherited diseases, determining the regulatory and ethical guidelines to govern such screenings is “proving difficult,” the Chicago Tribune reports. Although the field of embryonic testing initially focused on identifying genetic defects that are certain to cause suffering or death early in life, it [...]

Reproducing Makes You Famous

People like Nadya Suleman, the IVF junkie mother of 14, and Alfie Patten,the 13-year-old father from England, are getting famous just for reproducing. It’s a pretty gross trend. Probably the most troubling thing of all is how greedily we’ve slopped all this stuff up. But after making celebrity baby covers the biggest sellers for [...]

Ethical Issues Related to Birth of IVF Octuplets : Not a Cause for Celebration, Doctors Warn

 
Two newspapers recently published two opinion pieces examining the ethical issues surrounding the recent birth of octuplets to a California woman, Nadya Suleman, who reportedly underwent fertility treatments. Summaries appear below.
 


~ Arthur Caplan, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Something has gone terribly wrong when a 33-year-old single woman — who has no home of her own, no job [...]

First the Biopsy, then The Baby

A common medical procedure may be the key to helping couples who’ve had no luck with artificial insemination and IVF. Could a common uterine biopsy make pregnancy “stick” for women having trouble conceiving? A small but growing number of couples are embracing an unusual use of biopsies during infertility treatments in the belief that they [...]

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 Perils Of Being Older Dads

Women with older partners may be at higher risk of suffering miscarriages irrespective of their own age, according to a study that has linked the increased chance of a failed pregnancy with men over the age of 40. Until now it was widely assumed that miscarriage rates largely increased with female age only, but [...]

The genetic miracle behind the double mixed-race twins

The same genetic process which gave Dean Durrant and Alison Spooner’s first set of twin daughters different skin colours has been at work again. They first defied the odds in 2001 with Lauren, who has her mother’s blue eyes and red hair, and Hayleigh ,who has her father’s darker skin. But in a phenomenon compared [...]

Semen Quality and Intelligence : Is There a Link?

 
 
 
Past studies have linked an individual’s intelligence to his or her height, cardiovascular function and longevity, but now a new study suggests semen quality may be added to that list, since it also appears to help predict the level of a man’s intelligence.The findings as a whole suggest that both intelligence and semen quality are [...]