by Carolyn Berger, LCSW
On August 23rd Rufus Wainwright will be marrying his partner of five years, Jorn Weisbrodt, out in Montauk, Long Island.
I’ve always liked Rufus Wainwright’s music, but only became interested in his family …
Month: August 2012
The Woman Who Wants to Abolish Sex
The woman who wants to abolish sex: Genetics expert urges us to embrace a future of virgin births (for women AND men) in which sex and marriage are redundant.
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it … The wonderful Cole Porter song, Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love, lists many of the species who enjoy pairing off: ‘Even Pekineses at the Ritz do it!’
The Pekineses are not alone: 99.9 per cent of higher animal species reproduce themselves sexually. Species capable of reproducing themselves without contact between male and female are in the distinct minority.
Whiptail lizards and some hammer-head sharks apparently do it. Or rather, don’t do it. But so far no one has written a song about them and their lonely sexual endeavours.
But a research geneticist from Imperial College London, Aarathi Prasad, has tried to do the next best thing. Not only has she written a celebration of those eccentric creatures who are capable of reproducing by themselves without sexual contact, she controversially claims that sexless reproduction is the way of the future for humans, too.
A generation ago, test-tube babies were the stuff of science fiction: now, we accept these things as realities. In the same way, suggests Prasad, we could well be looking at a future in which human babies could be born without any sperm donors, let alone contact between the sexes. The future is sexless. Read full article.
Canadian Doctors Want Ottawa to Pay for Birth Control
Doctors at the Canadian Medical Association’s annual general meeting voted today in support of a motion asking the federal government to pay for birth control.
About 70 per cent of the eligible voters supported the motion on Wednesday in Yellowknife.
Dr. Sarah Cook, a family doctor in Yellowknife who introduced the motion, said teen pregnancy in the Northwest Territories is almost three times higher than the national average.
She said birth control is not accessible enough for many women.
“There are many women that don’t have access to employer benefits and who are not covered by NIHB [non-insured health benefits for First Nations and Inuit] here who do not have treaty cards that would be able to access that, so I see that very frequently,” said Cook.
Even if it is accessible, it’s often costly. Some methods, such as a hormonal IUD (intrauterine device) can cost almost $500. Cook said she sees cost barriers to contraception every day.
Dr. Ewen Affleck, also of Yellowknife, supported Cook, arguing that unwanted pregnancies are more expensive than birth control. Read full article.
Researchers Puzzled by Reduced IVF Outcomes in Minority Patients
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. – Although there are hints, researchers remain largely baffled about why ethnic minority patients have lower pregnancy and live birth rates than do whites when they undergo in vitro fertilization, especially as natural conception rates do not appear to be disparate.
Many potential explanations have been hypothesized, including differences in obesity rates, leiomyomata prevalence, inflammatory processes, and estrogen metabolism, Dr. Marcelle I. Cedars said at a meeting on in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, which was sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles.
None seem to fully account for diminished IVF outcomes in Asian Americans, blacks, and Hispanics. Pregnancy loss rates associated with assisted reproductive techniques also are higher for blacks and Hispanics, she noted.
Economic disparities and unequal access to IVF have been suggested as playing a role, but military studies, in which all patients have equal access to care, confirm reduced outcomes numerically – although the numbers did not quite reach statistical significance.
Dr. Cedars’ group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has focused on IVF outcomes in Asian Americans, who represent approximately a third of their patient population. Differences came under scrutiny beginning about 6 years ago. Read full article.
Furore over fertility treatment link to breast cancer, stress disorder
MEDICAL experts are divided over two new studies that suggest that women who got pregnant after taking fertility drugs or treatments such as in In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) may have higher odds for breast cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) later on in life.
A study published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that women using ovulation-stimulating fertility drugs who were unable to get pregnant for at least 10 weeks had a lower risk of breast cancer disease than women who have not taken the drugs.
Another new study published recently in the Bulletin of the American Psychological Association suggests that women who undergo fertility treatments may find the situation so distressing that they develop PTSD. The findings suggest the definition of PTSD may need to be changed so that its causes include potentially traumatic experiences such as infertility.
But a fertility expert and joint pioneer of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in Nigeria, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru disagrees.
Ashiru, who is also the medical director of Medical Art Centre (MART), Ikeja, told The Guardian: “Most of these reports are still very controversial and lack merit in the research studies. Many of the studies from Australia to Europe and the United States of America (USA) are at the end regarded as speculative.”
Ashiru, however, said one aspect of breast cancer that is widely accepted is that a high proportion of breast cancer are due to the unopposed action of estrogen due to the absence of progesterone or an excessive production of estrogen as in obesity.
He explained: “A number of the fertility drugs that are used to cause multiple ovulations will also cause a rise in the circulating estrogen in the body. The risk is more if the individual used the fertility drugs to cause ovulation alone. In most fertility centers today, during the fertility treatment, progesterone is also introduced to help support the intended pregnancy especially in patients undergoing IVF treatment.”
“It, therefore, sounds to reason that the operative factor is estrogen. Most of the fertility treatment occurs in a balanced medium between estrogen and progesterone hence estrogen alone is not able to have its way since progesterone is administered externally.” Read full article.
Finally, the Promise of Male Birth Control in a Pill: Compound Makes Mice Reversibly Infertile
ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2012) — Researchers have finally found a compound that may offer the first effective and hormone-free birth control pill for men. The study in the August 17th Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows that the small molecule makes male mice reversibly infertile without putting a damper on their sex drive. When the animals stop taking this new form of birth control, their sperm rebound and they are again able to sire perfectly healthy offspring.
“This compound produces a rapid and reversible decrease in sperm count and motility with profound effects on fertility,” said James Bradner of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the lead author of the study.
A male birth control pill hasn’t been easy to come by in large part because of the challenge of getting any drug across the blood:testis barrier, where it can reach the sperm-generating cells. That lack of contraceptive alternatives for men is partially responsible for the high rate of unplanned pregnancies. Despite the unsatisfactory options for male contraception, nearly one-third of couples rely on male-directed birth control methods. Read full article.
A Pack of Walnuts a Day Keeps the Fertility Specialist Away?
Aug. 15 in Biology of Reproduction‘s Papers-in-Press reveals that eating 75 grams of walnuts a day improves the vitality, motility, and morphology of sperm in healthy men aged 21 to 35.
Approximately 70 million couples experience subfertility or infertility worldwide, with 30 to 50 percent of these cases attributable to the male partner. Some studies have suggested that human semen quality has declined in industrialized nations, possibly due to pollution, poor lifestyle habits, and/or an increasingly Western-style diet.
Dr. Wendie Robbins and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles decided to investigate whether increasing polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are critical for sperm maturation and membrane function, would increase sperm quality in men consuming a Western-style diet.
The best sources of dietary PUFAs in a Western-style diet include fish and fish oil supplements, flax seed, and walnuts, the latter of which are rich sources of α-linolenic acid (ALA), a natural plant source of omega-3. Read full article.
Continuous Oral Contraceptive Pills Offer Women Earlier Pain Relief
HERSHEY –Taking oral contraceptives continuously, rather than as traditionally prescribed for each cycle, provides earlier relief for moderate to severe menstrual cramps — dysmenorrhea — according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.
Dysmenorrhea occurs during menstruation, resulting from abnormal uterine contractions, increased sensitivity to pain and added pressure in the pelvic area. It is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache and fatigue.
“Between 50 and 90 percent of women suffer from this condition, and it can really limit work, school, or athletic performance,” said Dr. Richard Legro, professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “Previous studies have estimated that dysmenorrhea accounts for 600 million lost work hours and $2 billion annually.”
Participants in this study suffered from unexplained menstrual pain. Their pain was not attributable to previous surgeries, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, or other pelvic or bowel diseases. Results were published in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
“Oral contraceptives are often prescribed to treat this condition, since reducing menstruation is a relatively straightforward way to relieve this cramping,” said Legro. “However, we wanted to determine whether there was a measurable difference between cyclic and continuous oral contraceptive treatment methods.” Read full article.
A Woman’s Dance Moves May Give Clues to Her Fertility
In a new meaning of “fertility dance,” a woman’s moves on the dance floor may reveal captivating clues about her current likelihood of getting pregnant.
Women in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle are judged as more attractive dancers by men than are women in a less-fertile phase, a new study finds. The research suggests that ovulation is not as hidden in humans as scientists had once suspected, said study researcher Bernhard Fink of the University of Göttingen in Germany.
“These changes are subtle, and women may not always be consciously aware of them. However, men seem to derive information on women’s fertility status from these cues,” Fink told LiveScience.
Hints of fertility
Earlier studies have found hints that women’s behavior changes slightly during fertile phases, from an increase in sexual desire to a preference for strong-jawed men. Research also suggests that men prefer the voices, smells and even facial attractiveness of women during fertile compared with nonfertile phases. One famous 2007 study even found that exotic dancers get better tips during the fertile phases of their cycle.
Those exotic dancers came into close contact with their clients, meaning that their possibly increased allure during fertile phases could have been a result of movement, smell or some other factor. In the new study, Fink and his colleagues reduced the variables to a question of movement only.
The researchers asked 48 women ages 19 to 33 to dance to an identical drumbeat during both the late follicular, or fertile phase, of their cycles and the nonfertile mid-luteal phase. Fertility was gauged by counting back from the woman’s last period. Two hundred men, mostly undergraduate and graduate students, were then shown silhouettes of the women dancing. Hair was pulled back and the women wore identical form-fitting outfits to reduce the differences between them.
The results revealed that though the men had no idea fertility was even being studied, they judged fertile women as more attractive dancers than women in their nonfertile phase. The researchers also captured video of the women’s silhouettes walking and found that fertile women’s gait was also judged more attractive than nonfertile women’s. Read full article.
Reproductive Technology and the Law
Enid Abrahami, a single mother by choice, conceived her first child with her own egg and a stranger’s sperm, thanks to a fertility clinic in New York. Abrahami then gave birth to her son in Israel, where she lives these days. She had no trouble attaining her son’s American citizenship. Abrahami, who has dual Israeli and American citizenship, grew up in both New York City and Tel Aviv.
When she decided to have a second child, Abrahami found that she was having trouble getting pregnant using her own eggs. So this time she used both somebody else’s egg—called a donor egg—and sperm from the same donor used to conceive her son. Again, for her second child, a daughter, the embryo was transferred to her uterus in New York and the baby was born in Israel.
But this time, when Abrahami went to fill out the paperwork for her daughter’s citizenship, a U.S. Embassy official learned that she was a single mom and had used donor sperm. The official then asked her, very directly, if she used a donor egg to make her baby.
“I literally felt like I left my body—it seemed so out of the blue,” Abrahami says. “It was one of the most violating experiences I have ever been through. How could they ask me that?”
Abrahami was told that she could not transfer her citizenship onto her daughter. She was told that citizenship is transferred only through DNA, and that she needed proof that at least one of the donors was a U.S. citizen. Most donations are made anonymously.
Abrahami isn’t the only U.S. citizen facing what appears to be a discrepancy in U.S. law. A child adopted overseas by an American is eligible for U.S. citizenship, but a child created from a donor egg and sperm and born overseas to a U.S. citizen must provide proof that one of the donors is a U.S. citizen. Read full article.