by Fenella Das Gupta, PH.D., Neuroscience
The Campaign Ad:
“ We started off like most other couples. First we dated, then we married, and then started talking about having a baby. One baby would make our family complete but, we’ve …
Month: June 2012
Unsnipped: More men seeking vasectomy reversals
Urologists report increase in American men who opt to restore their fertility.
Some 20 years after welcoming two daughters into the world — and 17 years after his vasectomy — Rick Perk found a second shot at love and yearned for a second chance at children.
So, then pushing age 50, Perk got unsnipped in 2010. But he didn’t know if the delicate operation worked until his current wife, Erin, 31, phoned while Perk was chauffeuring one of his girls home from a college visit.
“It was St. Patrick’s Day last year and Erin is Irish so her friends had wanted her to go out. She’d said no, that something was feeling different. She picked up a pregnancy test then called and broke the news,” Perk recalled. “I almost drove off the road, I was so excited.”
Nonprofits help cancer survivors with fertility preservation
At 31 years old, Alice Crisci was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The Redondo Beach resident bared it all in a photo shoot with the Daily Breeze back in 2008 before undergoing a double mastectomy.
The photos were a celebration of her body before cancer would change it forever. The newspaper continued to follow her journey, including her decision to ensure that after remission she’d have a chance at realizing her dream of becoming a mother.
“I learned very early on in the process that my fertility would be at risk, that there was a 50/50 chance I’d be left infertile,” says Crisci, now 35. “And that was a chance I wasn’t willing to take.”
So Crisci went through fertility preservation, a process that cost her $20,000 and had to be paid in full that day. Not qualifying for financial assistance, she charged the entire amount on her American Express card.
Can Diseases Make You Infertile?
What is infertility? Well there is no reason to think that you are infertile as you could not conceive just after trying for just a few times. Infertility can be explained as the biological inability to conceive even after trying for a long time. Some diseases cause infertility in both men and women.
In some cases, infertility issues are caused due to the male partner. In other cases it is due the female and in some cases due to both. Infertility is not always caused due poor lifestyle or sexual habits. Here we are listing down some diseases that can cause infertility in you or your partner.
DNA of fetus revealed through risk-free testing
Scientists have pieced together the entire DNA sequence of an 18-week-old fetus without having to use any invasive tests that could result in a miscarriage — an advance that offers a glimpse of the future of prenatal testing.
Using blood drawn from the mother and a sample of saliva from the father, the researchers were able to scan the fetus’ genome and determine whether it contained any of the myriad single-letter changes in the DNA code that can cause a genetic disorder. They could even pinpoint which mutations were inherited from Mom, which came from Dad, and which were brand-new.
If the technique is refined and the technology becomes inexpensive — as many experts anticipate — this type of prenatal testing could provide prospective parents with a simple, risk-free way to screen for a broad array of simple genetic disorders, according to the authors of a report in Thursday’s edition of Science Translational Medicine.
The Fight for Motherhood: One Woman’s Battle with Infertility Results in a Triple Miracle
In her inspiring new memoir Ordinary Miracles, Krissi Marie McVicker chronicles her dramatic journey through primary and secondary IVF, which started at the age of 29, and her tireless determination to become a mother despite all odds.
Untreatable gonorrhoea spreading around world: WHO
(Reuters) – Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoea have spread to countries across the world, the United Nations health agency said on Wednesday, and millions of patients may run out of treatment options unless doctors catch and treat cases earlier.
Scientists reported last year finding a “superbug” strain of gonorrhoea in Japan in 2008 that was resistant to all recommended antibiotics and warned then that it could transform a once easily treatable infections into a global health threat.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said those fears are now reality with many more countries, including Australia, France, Norway, Sweden and Britain, reporting cases of the sexually transmitted disease resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics – normally the last option for drugs against gonorrhoea.
“Gonorrhoea is becoming a major public health challenge,” said Manjula Lusti-Narasimhan, from the WHO’s department of reproductive health and research. She said more than 106 million people are newly infected with the disease every year.
More choose single-embryo transplants for IVF
As in vitro fertilization has become an increasingly common fact of life for those seeking to start a family, so have twins, triplets – or more, thanks to the transplantation of multiple embryos. The CDC reports that the twin birth rate rose 76 percent from 1980 to 2009 while triples and higher-order multiple births rose a whopping 315 percent.
But the tide of multiple births may be ebbing as an increasing number of women are opting to transfer a single embryo during IVF.
According to experts, women usually have two or more embryos transplanted in order to boost the chances for a baby. (In the rare case of “Octomom” Nadya Suleman, eight embryos were implanted, resulting in eight live births.)
Thanks to better technology, though, single-embryo transplants are now almost as effective as multiple-embryo transplants – with far fewer health risks to both mom and baby. High-profile cases like Suleman’s have also raised awareness about the risk of implanting too many embryos.
“It’s something that will contribute to healthier pregnancies,” says Dr. Louis Weckstein, owner of the Reproductive Science Center, a fertility clinic operating in the San Francisco Bay area for 30 nearly years. “We educate patients that transferring one embryo in select situations is almost equally as successful as multiple transfers, and there are a number of studies largely confirming this.”
WHO Appoints Director of Department of Reproductive Health and Research
The World Health Organization has announced the appointment of Professor Marleen Temmerman as the next Director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research and the UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction. Professor Temmerman will begin in this position in mid-October 2012.
Issues to Consider Prior to Pursuit of International Adoption
By Leonette Boiarski, ACSW, LSW
So many times, I have taken calls from families who are dissatisfied with their adoption agencies. Often, this is caused by a lack of proper research on the part of hopeful parents when they are selecting …