Month: June 2012

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First Test Tube Baby Mother Dies

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The woman who gave birth to the world’s first test tube baby has died. Lesley Brown, 64, who lived in Whitchurch, Bristol, made history in July 1978 when her daughter Louise was born at Oldham General Hospital. Mrs. Brown had been trying for a baby with her husband John for nine years before she became the first woman to give birth following IVF treatment.

She died at the Bristol Royal Infirmary on 6 June with her family by her side, it has been announced.

She successfully conceived following pioneering treatment by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards.

She leaves behind daughters Louise and Natalie, who were both born following IVF treatment, her stepdaughter Sharon and five grandchildren.

Her husband died five years ago.

A private funeral service was held in Bristol on Wednesday morning.

Read full article.

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No link seen between contraceptives and higher HIV risk-CDC

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ATLANTA, June 21 (Reuters) – There is no clear link between the use of contraceptives such as the birth control pill or injections such as Depo-Provera and an increased risk that a woman will contract HIV, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

But the CDC also said it was “strongly” encouraging the use of condoms as a precaution against the virus that causes AIDS.

Recent studies have suggested that the use of hormonal contraceptives could increase the risk of women contracting HIV. But after reviewing the studies, the Atlanta-based CDC said, “the evidence does not suggest” a link between oral contraceptives such as the birth control pill and increased HIV risk.

For injectable forms of birth control the evidence is inconclusive, but in the absence of more definitive research it too is considered safe, CDC officials said.

Read full article.

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Secondary Infertility: An Unexpected Diagnosis

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For a woman who has already conceived and given birth to a child, or even several children, the diagnosis of secondary infertility can be a bewildering and disorienting experience. According to the Centers for Disease Control, infertility affects approximately 5.3 million Americans; one out of ten married couples are facing some form of infertility issue, whether it’s the quest for their first child or adding additional children to their family.

For Leigh Kenyon (not her real name), disbelief colored her inability to conceive following the birth of her first child. “When my daughter was two, I miscarried my second pregnancy in the first trimester. When we tried again, I simply couldn’t get pregnant.”

As Leigh and many others have discovered, because it’s called “secondary,” (which means you’ve conceived in the past regardless if the outcome was a live birth, still birth, abortion or loss of pregnancy to miscarriage), your anxiety may not be taken seriously. The “proof” of her previous fertility kept Leigh from following up on her concerns as she struggled to make sense of the disparity between what her body was telling her and the reassurance offered by others. “I worried that something was wrong, but friends, family and even my OB kept telling me to relax, not to be in such a rush since I was obviously able to get pregnant. Even I assumed I must be able to conceive since I had done so twice before.”

Read full article.

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Infertility In Your 20s: Getting Diagnosed When You Should Be In Your ‘Fertility Peak’

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Olivia Tullo was 28 when she and her husband decided to start a family. They’d bought a house; they had a puppy. They were ready.

“We started trying, and several months went by. I just had a feeling,” Tullo said. “I just knew something wasn’t right.”

Her OB-GYN recommended a fertility specialist, who eventually recommended surgery for what was determined to be endometriosis. After that, there was more trying, more tests and the discovery that she had premature ovarian failure.

“My ovaries were shutting down,” Tullo said. “And I was only 29.”

Age is one of the main factors that can drive up a woman’s risk of infertility, which affects approximately 10 percent of women between the ages of 15 to 44. By 40, a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant drop from 90 to 67 percent; at 45, a woman has just a 15 percent shot.

Read full article.

 

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More Evidence that Obesity may Lower IVF Success

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The odds of having a baby via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) may be lower for obese women than their thinner counterparts, two new studies find.

The studies, reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, add to evidence suggesting that heavy women have a lesser chance of success with IVF — where a woman’s eggs are fertilized in a lab dish then implanted in her uterus.

Research shows that obese women may be less fertile than their thinner peers. But the evidence has been mixed on whether extra pounds can affect a woman’s odds of having a baby with IVF.

In the new studies, researchers at two different Massachusetts fertility centers found that overweight women were less likely to have a baby after IVF.

In one, the birth rate among both overweight and obese women was 23 percent, versus 42 percent among women at the lower end of the normal-weight range.

In the other study, the odds of success were lower only for obese women, and not those who were less overweight.

Of 477 women who were moderately obese, 22 percent had a baby. That compared with 30 percent of normal-weight women.

And the chances of success dipped with the severity of a woman’s obesity. Among the most obese women — about 100 pounds or more overweight — 15 percent had a baby.

The lead researcher on that study said there are still questions about the role of a woman’s weight in IVF success.

In some past studies, researchers have found that normal-weight and obese women have similar chances of having a baby, said Dr. Vasiliki A. Moragianni, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

But most of those studies were much smaller than this one, he said in an email.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/21/more-evidence-obesity-may-lower-ivf-success/#ixzz1yTM5bByc

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Pfizer Paid $896 Million in Prempro Settlements

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Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s largest drugmaker, said in a securities filing that it has paid $896 million to resolve about 60 percent of the cases alleging its menopause drugs caused cancer in women.

Pfizer has now settled about 6,000 lawsuits that claim Prempro and other hormone-replacement drugs caused breast cancer, and it has set aside an additional $330 million to resolve the remaining 4,000 suits, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The reserve means New York-based Pfizer has committed more than $1.2 billion to resolving claims that its Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn units failed to properly warn women about the menopause drugs’ health risk. Based on the May 10 filing, the company is paying an average of about $150,000 a case.

“It’s good for the company not to let this litigation linger,” Les Funtleyder, a New York-based fund manager at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York who holds Pfizer shares, said yesterday in a phone interview. “Resolving these cases gives investors one less thing to worry about.”
More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, exceeded $2 billion before the release of the Women’s Health Initiative, a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Read full article.

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Fertility Preservation Talks are More Direct for Men than for Women

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Whereas sperm banking was viewed as a routine part of oncology care for men, few women were afforded the opportunity to discuss their fertility options at cancer diagnosis, according to the findings of a small study.

After receiving a diagnosis of cancer, 16 men and 18 women aged 17 to 49 years were interviewed soon after their first consultation with a cancer-focused health professional. Topics discussed included the patient’s perceptions and understanding of the diagnosis; prognosis and future reproductive choices; perceived quality and source of information received, communication, and support; and the roles of partners, family members, friends, and health care professionals.

In addition, 15 health care professionals were asked for their opinions on the information given to younger people with cancer, their knowledge and views of the treatments available with respect to fertility preservation, and their perceptions of patients’ priorities.

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Wording In Contraception Conversations Marks Idealogical Divides

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Fighting over semantics prevails in conversations over both the FDA’s definition of what the “morning-after pill” does as well as the Obama administration’s rule that employers and insurers provide no cost contraception to their covered employees.

The Hill: Report: Pregnancy Line Was Struck From Guide To ‘Morning-After Pill’
Federal health officials are heeding new doubts that emergency contraception actually scuttles pregnancies, according to a report. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allegedly edited its online description of how the “morning-after pill” works — striking the potentially dubious detail that continues to inspire most of the backlash against the administration’s birth control coverage mandate. According to The Daily Beast, the FDA’s online guide to birth control methods used to state that emergency contraception might stop a pregnancy by preventing a fertilized egg from “implanting to the uterus.” This was the prevailing view until experts recently told The New York Times that it has no scientific basis (Viebeck, 6/18).

Read full article.

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France: donor anonymity holds firm in court case

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A French court has effectively reaffirmed the country’s policy of gamete donor anonymity by rejecting a donor-conceived woman’s demand for information on her biological father.

The woman requested that a message be passed on to the man asking whether he would accept to be identified. She was also seeking disclosure of non-identifying information – medical history, reasons for donation, number of children conceived from the sample – in the event of the man’s refusal of her request.

But even though the woman, who has requested anonymity, was not asking for direct identification, the tribunal in Montreuil, on the outskirts of Paris, still threw out her request on the grounds that information given to clinics by gamete donors is protected as secret under French law.

The woman, herself a lawyer, had invoked Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life and in some readings confers a right to access information essential to personal identity.

Read full article.