Month: August 2012

Fertility Clock Headlines, Fertility Headlines

Judge rules on when conception begins

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A Brisbane judge has made what is believed to be a world-first ruling on conception that will have a significant impact on Queensland parents who have children through surrogacy.

The decision, made by Brisbane Children’s Court judge Leanne Clare on Wednesday, ruled conception only occurred when a fertilised egg was implanted in a woman’s womb – that is, the moment of pregnancy – rather than at the moment the egg was fertilised.

“The point of conceiving a child is the commencement of the pregnancy, which involves an active process within a woman’s body.”

While the ruling has no impact on birth through natural conception, it has a major impact on surrogate parents and those with children born after in-vitro fertilisation programs.

The ruling will stop disputes in parenting orders when couples seek to have a child through a surrogacy arrangement.

Under Queensland and New South Wales surrogacy legislation, surrogacy arrangements – where the birth mother assigns parenthood to the surrogate parents – must be signed before a child is ”conceived’’. Read full article.

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WHO approves coil as emergency contraceptive

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NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 7 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has now recommended the use of Copper-bearing intrauterine devices (IUD’s) as an emergency contraception.

It says if inserted within five days of unprotected sex, an IUD which is also a regular contraception method can be up to 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy following sexual assault, incorrect use of contraceptives or unprotected sex.

“This is the most effective form of emergency contraception available,” says the WHO.

It says once inserted, a woman can continue to use the IUD as an ongoing method of contraception and may choose to change to another contraceptive method in future.

“This may be an ideal emergency contraceptive for a woman who is hoping for an ongoing, highly effective contraceptive method,” WHO says in its website.

It says as an emergency contraception, IUD’s primarily prevent fertilisation by causing a chemical change that damages sperm and egg before they can meet.

“A copper bearing IUD is a very safe form of emergency contraception. The risks of infection, expulsion or perforation are low.”

However, the global health body has cautioned that IUD’s are not to be used if a woman is already pregnant. It adds that there are other contraindications to using a copper bearing IUD as ongoing contraception which should also be considered before its use as emergency contraception. Read full article.

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Too Risky for Toddler to Meet Sperm Donor Father, Judge Rules

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The potential risk of introducing a Northern Ontario toddler to his genetic father at this point in his life is too major to be ignored, a judge has ruled in turning down a sperm donor’s bid for interim access to the boy, now being raised by his biological mother and her lesbian partner.

The decision marks the first round in a key test case of the uncertain law around exchanges of human sperm and egg, as increasing numbers of Canadian children are born by “assisted” reproduction.

A full trial is scheduled for this October to consider the man’s demand for paternity rights – and add some clarity to the tangled issue – but Rene deBlois had requested access to the boy pending the final wrap-up of the case.

The two women had argued that Tyler Lavigne, who has never met Mr. deBlois, might become confused and insecure if the 22-month-old encountered the donor now, noted Justice Norman Karam of the Ontario Superior Court in Cochrane, Ont.

“Despite the child’s young age, it is impossible to know what disclosure of [Mr. deBlois’s] status as his parent might mean,” said the judge. “All circumstances considered, the risk of there being an adverse effect to the child is too great to ignore.”

Justice Karam said he considered imposing limitations on the access to deal with those concerns, but decided the restrictions would be virtually impossible to enforce.

He said he also found “very convincing” the couple’s argument that by allowing access to the child now, he could inadvertently affect the outcome of the trial, expected to be closely watched by legal analysts, parent groups and others.

Selena Kazimierski and Nicole Lavigne say the donor – a former high-school acquaintance of Ms. Lavigne – signed an agreement that he would never contact the baby born in October, 2010, with the help of his artificially inseminated sperm. They fear the family life they have built for their son would be unduly disrupted if he that changed. The donor says he no longer honours the deal, partly because Ms. Lavigne failed to follow through on her verbal commitment to have a baby for him, too.  Read full article.

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CDC Moves to Keep New Resistant Gonorrhea at Bay

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Federal health officials took steps Thursday to head off the emergence of a new gonorrhea “superbug” that’s resistant to standard antibiotics.

Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that infects 700,000 Americans a year, already has become resistant to all but one class of antibiotics and could soon become untreatable, federal health officials warned. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new treatment guidelines, hoping to delay the inevitable day when standard drugs no longer work. The guidelines call for withholding a potent oral antibiotic now commonly used to treat the infection. Instead, doctors should use an injectable form to which the gonorrhea bacteria seems less likely to develop resistance, along with a second type of antibiotic pills.

“Gonorrhea for years has developed resistance to every antibiotic we’ve thrown at it,” says Kimberly Workowski, an infectious-disease expert at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Now, “we’re at the end of the line on standard therapies,” says P. Frederick Sparling, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Gonorrhea is a major cause of infertility among women. It increases the risk that people will be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that they will spread it to their partners, according to the CDC.

As recently as 2007, doctors could treat gonorrhea with a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which include the drug Ciprofloxacin, or Cipro. Now, those drugs no longer work for gonorrhea. Instead, doctors have turned to a class of drugs called cephalosporins, also used to treat serious conditions such as bacterial meningitis and salmonella poisoning, says Sparling.

Yet even these antibiotics may not be useful for long, he says. Read full article.

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Many Egg-Donor Recruiters Ignore Ethical Standards

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A sizable share of the U.S. organizations recruiting egg donors online don’t adhere to ethical guidelines, including failing to warn of the risks of the procedure and offering extra payment for traits like good looks, according to a U.S. study.

Women are recruited to donate eggs to fulfill a growing demand by couples seeking in-vitro fertilization (IVF), but a number of websites seeking to recruit them ignore standards set by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).

“I would argue that there needs to be more attention from ASRM about these agencies, because you don’t want these women exploited,” said Robert Klitzman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and lead author of the study that appeared in the journal Fertility & Sterility.

Ethical standards set forth by the ASRM specify that donors should be at least 21 years old, and those between ages 18 and 20 should receive a psychiatric evaluation first.

Also, women are not to be paid for their eggs but compensated, equally, for their time. Donor traits such as college grades or previous successful donations should not result in higher payment.

But abiding by the recommendations is voluntary, and the guidelines carry no legal authority, though ASRM will sanction members who do not adhere to the guidelines. But that doesn’t cover non-member organizations.

“Our ability to influence the behavior of non-members is pretty limited,” said Sean Tipton, a spokesperson for ASRM. Read full article.

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Why Americans Aren’t Having Babies—and How It Hurts Us

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Americans aren’t having babies, and the economy’s to blame.

After all, who has enough cash to save up for food, clothing, college for another human being? Due to the recent recession, the fertility rate has fallen to its lowest point in 25 years.

The fertility rate is measured as the average number of children per woman, and right now the American rate is down to 1.87 children per woman. This number represents a sharp decrease of 12% since 2007.

Kids are expensive (obviously), so when the economy is shaky, it makes sense for individuals to reevaluate whether they can really afford to have their first child, or add a second child to their family. But while this thinking is prudent on a personal finance level, this trend is potentially dangerous for the economy as a whole.

We’ll break down what lower fertility could mean for the economy … and how this trend could potentially improve motherhood in the United States.

As Countries Develop, Fertility Rates Usually Drop

In the United States, for instance, the average fertility rate was 3.67 children per woman between the years of 1875 and 1925, dropping to a little above 2 children per woman in the second half of the 20th century. And that’s a good place to be, because 2.1 is the fertility rate sweet spot: It’s the replacement rate, ensuring that a country’s population doesn’t decline over time. (Because two parents each replace themselves, and then some. Get it?)

Many European and Asian countries in the past few decades have struggled to maintain this replacement rate, falling closer to an average of one child per woman. This leads to an increasingly aging population. For many years, the United States was seemingly immune to this trend—until now.

At first glance, a lower fertility rate would seem to have positive implications for an economy. A country’s government would spend less on education costs; mothers would be able to return more quickly and easily to the workforce, which would increase productivity; and families would have more expendable income, which helps consumer spending.

But these short-term benefits are quickly outweighed by the more serious long-term consequences.

Read full article.

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Fertility Treatments May Put Women at Risk for PTSD Symptoms, Study Suggests

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Women who undergo fertility treatments may find the situation so distressing that they develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says.

In the study, close to 50 percent of participants met the official criteria for PTSD, meaning they could be diagnosed with the condition.

That’s about six times higher than the percentage of people in the general population who suffer from PTSD (8 percent.)

The findings suggest the definition of PTSD may need to be changed so that its causes include potentially traumatic experiences such as infertility, said study researcher Allyson Bradow, director of psychological services at Home of the Innocents, a nonprofit organization that helps families in need in Louisville, Ky.

Currently, the definition of PTSD says people must have experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event, or event that could cause serious injury.

“The definition of trauma should be expanded to include expectations of life,” said Bradow, who went through fertility treatments herself, and conducted the study as a doctoral student at Spalding University in Louisville. “Having children, expanding your family, carrying on your genetic code — that’s an instinctual drive that we have as human beings. And when that is being threatened, it’s not necessarily your life being threatened, but your expectation of what your life can be or should be like,” she said.

The finding also shows that a greater effort should be made to counsel those who go through fertility treatments, to help them cope with the emotional and psychological effects of the experience, Bradow said.

Read full article.

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Christie Vetoes Bill that Would have Eased Tough Rules for Gestational Surrogates

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TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed a bill that would have relaxed New Jersey’s strict surrogate parenting law, saying the state hadn’t yet answered the “profound” questions that surround creating a child through a contract.

According to the governor’s statement explaining the veto obtained by The Star-Ledger, “Permitting adults to contract with others regarding a child in such a manner unquestionably raises serious and significant issues.”

“In contrast to traditional surrogacy, a gestational surrogate birth does not use the egg of the carrier,” the governor wrote. “In this scenario, the gestational carrier lacks any genetic connection to the baby, and in some cases, it is feasible that neither parent is genetically related to the child. Instead, children born to gestational surrogates are linked to their parents by contract.”

“While some all applaud the freedom to explore these new, and sometimes necessary, arranged births, others will note the profound change in the traditional beginnings of the family that this bill will enact. I am not satisfied that these questions have been sufficiently studied by the Legislature at this time,” according to the statement.

The bill (S1599) would have eliminated the three-day waiting period for parents of children born to surrogates to be listed on their birth certificates. It also would have required the “gestational carrier” to surrender custody of the child immediately upon the child’s birth.

The state has not updated its surrogacy law since the Baby M case in 1988, which defined the legal relationship between a surrogate using her egg and a husband who used his sperm to conceive a child. But that case involved artificial insemination, not in vitro fertilization, which is what sparked this bill involving a Union County couple.

The state Bureau of Vital Statistics initially allowed the couple to be listed on their son’s birth certificate after the three-day waiting period. But state went to court to block it because the intended mother had no genetic or biological tie to the infant – conceived with an anonymous donor egg and her husband’s sperm. She had to adopt the baby despite a surrogacy contract recognized by a judge.

Read full article.

 

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Surrogacy Laws Vary by State

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In Ohio, a surrogate and an egg donor both sued for custody of triplets after the genetic father and his fiancée failed to visit the babies in the hospital for several days.

In New Jersey, a woman who had served as a surrogate for her brother and his same-sex partner fought to raise the resulting twin girls – even though they had not been conceived with her eggs.

And in India, a set of twins ended up in an orphanage after DNA testing showed they had no genetic link to a Canadian couple who had arranged a surrogate pregnancy.

In Wisconsin, there’s no telling what the outcome of cases like these would be.

That’s because Wisconsin has no laws on surrogacy.

That’s a far cry from two nearby states: Michigan, where hiring a surrogate is a crime, and Illinois, which has perhaps the most liberal law in the nation allowing surrogacy. Some who work in the field believe the lack of regulation here is positive, while others think it puts families on dangerous legal ground.

“It depends,” said Lynn Bodi, a Madison lawyer who co-owns a surrogacy agency. “The problem is: If there was a law, we don’t know exactly what it would say.”

Judges here have dealt with surrogacy on a case-by-case basis, resulting in some positive case law, according to attorney Melissa Brisman of Reproductive Possibilities, the largest surrogacy agency on the East Coast.

Read full article.

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How excess body hair can be a warning sign of infertility

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The 30-year-old sales and marketing manager from Buckinghamshire has polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal imbalance in which women’s ovaries produce excessive amounts of the male hormone testosterone.

This results in the formation of small harmless cysts as well as symptoms such as excessive hair growth (known as hirsutism), baldness, erratic periods, weight gain, acne and fertility problems.

The condition, which affects one in ten British women, should not be confused with polycystic ovaries, which merely describes the appearance of small cysts on the ovaries. (Roughly 20 per cent of women have this condition with no effects at all and no problems conceiving.)

Women with PCOS have both the cysts and the symptoms caused by excess testosterone.

While Marianne is fortunate to have few of the symptoms, she is blighted by excess hair, which she says makes her feel utterly unfeminine.

‘As well as waxing my face every fortnight, I use an epilator on my abdomen,’ she says.

‘If I didn’t, the hair on my face and body, which is thick and very dark, would be grotesque.

‘Bill is sweet and maintains he doesn’t notice a thing, but it’s impossible for him not to see the hair growth.

‘I hate it. I’m fighting what feels like a losing battle against hair sprouting in places no woman should have it.’

The condition can run in families and Marianne believes a great-aunt had it.

‘She didn’t have children, and I remember her whiskery chin very clearly,’ she says.

Read full article.