Hundreds of women anxious to know if they can have babies are visiting fertility clinics for a new blood test that reveals how long they can expect to be fertile.
Some are taking the test, which measures levels of an ovarian hormone, as part of IVF treatment or because of fertility fears following an illness.
But others are it using to help map out career and travel plans or even to find out how long they have to find someone to father their child.
The simple test measures the level of Anti Mullerian Hormone (AMH) present in a woman’s blood, indicating how many eggs she has left - a key factor in deciding when to have children or which fertility treatment to pursue.
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Tags : fertility test
New research suggests the hormone kisspeptin shows promise as a potential new treatment for infertility. Scientists led by Dr Waljit Dhillo from Imperial College London, have shown that giving kisspeptin to women with infertility can activate the release of sex hormones which control the menstrual cycle.
This research could lead to a new fertility therapy for women with low sex hormone levels.
Kisspeptin is a product of the KISS-1 gene and is a key regulator of reproductive function. Animals and humans lacking kisspeptin function do not go through puberty and remain sexually immature. In a previous study, Dr Waljit Dhillo and colleagues showed that kisspeptin treatment leads to the production of sex hormones in fertile women; they have now extended their research to look at the effects of kisspeptin in women whose periods have stopped due to a hormone imbalance.
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Tags : fertility hormones
Ten percent of modern couples have difficulty conceiving within the first year of trying for a baby here in the U.S. Many turn to natural health modalities and remedies as a complement or alternative to fertility treatments such as assisted reproductive technologies.
It makes sense that a healthy body, mind and spirit will make the best sanctuary to conceive and carry a baby. Complementary and alternative medicine focuses on the person, not the disease or diagnosis. This can often be a great thing for women who are going to the infertility clinic many times and lose the sense of individuality when all the doctor wants to talk about are statistics and tests.
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Tags : fertility, natural
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Obese women have alterations in the environment around the ovary before they ovulate that appear to play a role in the well-documented association between obesity and reduced fertility, according to a report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
“Characteristics of eggs are influenced by the environment in which they develop within the ovary,” lead author Dr. Rebecca Robker, from Adelaide University, Australia, said in a statement. “Our study found that obese women have abnormally high levels of fats and inflammation in the fluid surrounding their eggs, which can impact an egg’s developmental potential.”
The study included 96 women who were attending a private infertility clinic and who were divided, roughly equally, into normal weight, overweight, and obese groups using standard body mass index criteria. The fluid surrounding the ovaries - the follicular fluid — obtained during egg retrieval, was analyzed for hormones, metabolites, gene expression within certain cells.
As body mass index rose, so did follicular fluid levels of insulin, lactate, triglycerides, and C-reactive protein. Levels of sex hormone binding globulin, by contrast, decreased. Small differences in insulin-regulated genes in granulosa cells were also noted between obese and normal weight women.
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Tags : infertility, obesity
March 9 (Bloomberg) — Children of older fathers have lower intelligence scores than those born to younger men, perhaps because of cumulative damage to men’s sperm during their lives, Australian and U.S. researchers found.
Children born to fathers who were age 20 scored an average of 2 points higher on an IQ test than children born to 50-year- old fathers, according to the study of data collected on 33,437 children from 1959 through 1965. Average IQ among children dropped steadily on a number of tests as their fathers’ ages rose, according to the research published today in Public Library of Science, Medicine, an online journal.
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Tags : Conception, fertility, male
After the uproar over the octuplets born in California and the choices made by Nadya Suleman and her doctor, it seems that the whole world is paying attention to the fertility industry.
And one of the options for couples who are struggling to conceive is starting to gain some attention, particularly in light of Suleman’s claims that she simply couldn’t allow her “leftover” embryos to go, well, unused. (Thus her reasoning behind implanting all of her remaining 6 embryos, 2 of which later split in utero.)
Another option she might have considered? Embryo adoption.
Embryo adoption is the process by which parents who have created embryos, usually in preparation for IVF (in-vitro fertilization), then go on to allow other couples to ‘adopt’ the embryos instead of using the embryos themselves.
It’s a relatively new concept, and one that is very exciting to some people.
One of the many aspects that some couples find appealing is the relatively low cost of the adoption, which can range anywhere from $2000-5000. Compared to repeated IVF attempts or the adoption of a live child, the cost can be considerably less. The process can take anywhere between 6-12 months to complete.
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Tags : adoption, ivf
Women with dominant nature have a higher likelihood of conceiving more sons, according to a new study.
The study report says that a growing body of evidence suggest a maternal influence on sex determination.
The study showed that the sex of bovine embryos positively correlates with pre-ovulatory follicular testosterone.
It, however, remains a mystery as to how exposure of oocytes to follicular testosterone may influence the ability of a metaphase II egg to be preferentially inseminated by a Y-bearing sperm.
The study has been published in the journal Biology of Reproduction.
Source
Tags : male conception mothers
NEW YORK, N.Y. — The Sher Institutes of Reproductive Medicine (SIRM) announced today the introduction of the world’s first CGH-Risk Sharing Plan that guarantees qualified IVF patients a baby or offers a full refund of the clinic’s medical fees. CGH is an acronym for Comparative Genomic Hybridization - a genetic process that analyzes the chromosomal integrity of the egg or embryo prior to it being transferred to a woman’s uterus in the course of In Vitro Fertilization. GH reveals whether an egg or embryo has the correct number of chromosomes. Too many or too few (referred to as “aneuploidy”) will result in either a non-viable embryo, a miscarriage or, if implanted and carried to term, a birth defect. Because aneuploidy is the most common cause of IVF failure, identifying viable embryos for transfer to the uterus can significantly boost birthrates for IVF.
“We can confidently share the financial risks of IVF because of our extraordinary successes using CGH to select one or two of the best embryos,” explained Dr. Geoffrey Sher, Executive Medical Director of the Sher Institutes. “This is why, using CGH, our success rates are high, while our triplet rates are almost nil.”
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Tags : ivf
To sustain a healthy pregnancy, women must maintain healthy levels of progesterone.
As a woman’s body prepares for ovulation, progesterone levels go up. The corpus luteum can stimulate the production of progesterone for about two weeks and if a conception occurs, the pregnancy itself takes over the stimulation of progesterone. With no pregnancy, the lining of the uterus deteriorates and a period begins.
Some research indicates if a newly pregnant woman’s progesterone level begins to diminish, miscarriage is imminent.
Many women who have experienced one or more miscarriages or are known to have a luteal phase defect (LPD) are being presented with a new option by their providers called Prometrium.
Prometrium is a synthetic form of progesterone that may help maintain a pregnancy and ward off miscarriage.
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Tags : miscarriage, prometrium
Two research teams with collaborators from the Warren Alpert Medical School and the Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island have received grants to study fertility and pregnancy risks.
Funded by the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, the grants are designed to encourage collaborative research and development within the state, according to the hospital’s Feb. 23 press release.
This year, the council awarded grants to seven Rhode Island teams working in a variety of fields. Each team received approximately $200,000 in research funding.
One team - a collaboration between Associate Professor of Medical Science and Engineering Jeffrey Morgan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Sandra Carson and Assistant Professor of Engineering Anubhav Tripathi - will use a 3-D Petri dish technology previously developed by Morgan and colleagues to create an “artificial ovary” that could be used to preserve the fertility of women undergoing certain medical treatments.
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Tags : fertility, research
