Washington, June 30: French doctors have unveiled a new technique for transplanting the ovaries of women who have lost their fertility as a result of cancer treatment.
The technique, described by Pascal Piver of the Limoges University Hospital in central-western France, has helped a young woman who had been menopausal for two years to give birth to a healthy baby girl.
Using a two-step process, they restored fertility to the woman after she had undergone chemotherapy treatment for sickle-cell anaemia, a disease in which red blood cells become dangerously misshaped.
Ovarian transplants, pioneered in 2004, entail removing an ovary from a woman before she undergoes cancer therapy. The organ is frozen and then thawed and returned to the patient after her treatment.
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Tags : egg donations, infertility
Clinic matches infertile couples with donated embryos
By Kristi L. Nelson (Contact)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Debbie and Steve Berner had always talked about having a family — after they reached a point in their lives and careers when the timing was right.
But when that time came, the Troutman, N.C., couple faced an unexpected hurdle: infertility.
The Berners tried for three years to conceive. They became disillusioned with in vitro fertilization, which Debbie Berner said was exhausting and expensive. They became discouraged with traditional adoption, also expensive and a difficult process.
Then Berner read on the Internet about the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, which will celebrate its 100th birth with a celebration Saturday.
The center serves as a repository for frozen embryos conceived when couples go through fertility treatments. Couples who have completed their families can donate the leftover embryos to be “adopted” by others unable to have their own — an alternative to paying to store the embryos indefinitely, or to having them destroyed.
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Tags : Conception, egg donations
By Gina Redmond
Evening anchor
Published: June 5, 2009
It’s becoming more the norm than the exception: women who are giving birth in their late 40’s and early 50’s.
Actress Geena Davis gave birth to twins at 48; Jane Seymour gave birth at 45; Cheryl Tiegs at 52.
Yet statistics show that once a woman reaches the age of 40, her fertility rate is pretty low. That’s why many women seek an egg donor for help.
What is egg donation? I took a closer look at the procedure and the female donors who are changing lives.
Pick up almost any college newspaper and you’ll see the ads seeking egg donors like this 24-year-old grad student who doesn’t want us to use her name.
Earlier this year at a clinic out-of-state, she donated 28 of her eggs, and she says she’s ready to do it again.
“I’m helping someone and they appreciate it,” she said.
The fact is, in a society where more and more women are waiting longer to get pregnant, egg donors like her are desperately needed.
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Tags : egg donations, infertility, ivf
