Scientists have been able to make and study human embryos in their labs for decades. But they have never been able to keep them alive outside a woman’s womb for more than about a week.
Author: ASRM News and Research
Control of Fertility: New Player Identified
Individual small RNAs are responsible for controlling the expression of gonadoliberin or GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), a neurohormone that controls sexual maturation, the appearance of puberty, and fertility in adults, new research shows. The involvement of microRNAs, transcribed from DNA, occurs around birth, and marks a key step in postnatal development.
Scientists Successfully Made Sperm Cells From Human Skin Cells
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 6 percent of married women in the US are unable to get pregnant, and about 12 percent of women have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term, regardless of marital status.”What to do when someone who wants to have a child lacks gametes [eggs or sperm]?” one of the researchers in a new study, Carlos Simon from the Valencian Infertility Institute, said in a press statement. “This is the problem we want to address: to be able to create gametes in people who do not have them.”
Ask Well: Exercise Can Impair Fertility
Exercise is good, but too much — as in women who are endurance-distance athletes — can hinder fertility.
Will the End of IVF Twins Lead to More Fertility Benefits
New figures released by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, or SART, show that twin births from in-vitro fertilization are on the decline. Out of more than 190,000 IVF cycles — an all-time high — 78% of births were singletons, up from nearly 76% for 2013.
Four Things Doctors Wish they Knew about Infertility
About 12 percent of American women of childbearing age have trouble getting and staying pregnant, and about 7.5 percent of sexually experienced men under 44 have seen a fertility doctor, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet despite the fact that infertility is so common, there’s a lot we don’t know about it.
Four Journeys Through Infertility: Where Are They Now
From celebrating the everyday joys of being a new parent, to preparing to adopt another child, to contemplating future pregnancies, four couples who have struggled with infertility are moving forward.
Should You Take an at-Home Fertility Test?
For women who know they want to have kids, that’s a pretty grim thought, but it turns out to be even worse than that: We lose hundreds or even a thousand eggs per month through a process that’s like programmed cell death, says Owen Davis, MD, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). And even if you’re preventing ovulation with the pill or an IUD, those unreleased eggs don’t stick around — they die.
Are We Ready for Prenatal Children?
Let’s assume that Alabama voters pass a referendum approving the constitutional amendment that Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, perennially offers – the personhood amendment which decrees that life begins at “fertilization” and an embryo or fetus is a person. Supporters of the bill contemplate that “prenatal children” would receive the equal protection of all the same laws that others enjoy. This is an example of many of the bills sponsored by Republican legislators over the past five years. They are at best, ill-conceived, and at worst, absurd.
The Number of Triplets Born in the U.S. Drops by 40%
Women are having fewer triplets than in the past, according to a new federal study looking at the rate of multiple births over time. Experts have been concerned over spikes in women having triplets—thought to be due to women getting pregnant later and the use of fertility enhancement technologies.