Author: brigitte

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Active Lifestyle Leading Up To IVF Treatment Makes Women Far More Likely To Conceive

brigitte

Gardening, doing the housework or going for brisk walks can treble IVF success, according to researchers. Women who led active lifestyles in the year leading up to their treatment were far more likely to conceive. Scientists have been divided about whether exercise helps or hinders the chances of pregnancy, either naturally or with IVF.

While some studies have found that physical activity reduces fertility, others have found it improves it – or makes no difference.

Now scientists have found that women who do the housework, go for brisk walks or take other ‘moderate’ forms of exercise are three times more likely to conceive than those who spend most of the day sitting down.

The lifestyles of 87 women undergoing IVF were compared in the year leading up to their treatment. Read full article.

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Study Explains Link Between Hyperprolactinaemia And Infertility

brigitte

Hyperprolactinaemia is a major cause of anovulation. Anovulation means no ovulation occurs in a woman’s menstrual cycle. Hyperprolactinaemia is where abnormally high levels of the hormone prolactin are in the blood. Prolactin is a hormone that is found in both men and women, that’s secreted by the pituitary gland and is released at various times during the day. This hormone enlarges a woman’s mammary gland preparing her for breastfeeding.

New research has been discovered, until now not much was known in detail of what increases prolactin in women. All that was known was that an increase of prolactin in women had disturbed one of the most important hormones affecting fertility, GnRH(Gonadotropin releasing hormone), which is responsible for the production of sex hormones, and the stimulation of the luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone (LH and FSH). Read full article. 

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We Need to Talk About Our Eggs

brigitte

WHEN I recently mentioned to a pregnant acquaintance that I was writing a book about egg freezing (and had frozen my own eggs in hopes of preserving my ability to have children well into my 40s), she replied, “You’re so lucky. I wish I had known to freeze my eggs.”

She was 40 years old and wanted two children, so she and her husband were planning to start trying to conceive a second child shortly after the birth of their first. “Now everything is a rush,” she said. Married at 38, she didn’t think to talk to her obstetrician-gynecologist about fertility before then. If her doctor had brought up the subject, she said, she might have put away some eggs when she was younger. Read full article.

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ART Linked to Heart Defect

brigitte

NEW ORLEANS — The use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) — of which in vitro fertilization is the most common technique — appears to be associated with higher rates of birth defects, researchers found.

Babies born to mothers who used ART to conceive were more likely to have a major birth defect compared with those born to mothers who conceived naturally, according to Dr. Lorraine Kelley-Quon of Mattel Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, who reported the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics meeting here. The results held up even after adjusting for potential confounders like maternal age.

In particular, ART was associated with an 81 percent increase in the relative risk for defects of the eye, a 41 percent increase in relative risk for congenital heart defects, and a 40 percent increase in relative risk for defects of the genitourinary system. Read full article.

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Boys Now Enter Puberty Younger, Study Suggests, But It’s Unclear Why

brigitte

A large study released by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that boys are entering puberty earlier now than several decades ago — or at least earlier than the time frame doctors have historically used as a benchmark.

The study, widely considered the most reliable attempt to measure puberty in American boys, estimates that boys are showing signs of puberty six months to two years earlier than was reported in previous research, which historically taught that 11 ½ was the general age puberty began in boys. But experts cautioned that because previous studies were smaller or used different approaches, it is difficult to say how much earlier boys might be developing. Read full article.

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New IVF Screening Can Turn Fertility Clock Back 10 Years

brigitte

An IVF process that could give a woman in her early forties the same chance of becoming pregnant as a 32-year-old has been developed by scientists. They say the screening treatment could boost a 42-year-old’s odds of having a baby from 13 per cent to  60 per cent. It works by picking only the embryos most likely to create a healthy foetus, slashing the odds of miscarriage.

Crucially, it also involves the embryos being frozen for at least a month after IVF to allow the woman’s reproductive organs to return to normal. Scientists believe that the powerful fertility-boosting drugs given during IVF can harm the embryo if it is put into the womb too soon. Read full article.

 

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Freezing Eggs For Fertility Works, Caution Urged

brigitte

WASHINGTON (AP) — Freezing human eggs can be successful in treating infertility — but guidelines issued Friday still urge caution for women hoping to pause a ticking biological clock.

Egg freezing had long been labeled experimental, but the American Society for Reproductive Medicine declared that’s no longer the case. The group cited studies that found younger women are about as likely to get pregnant if they used frozen-and-thawed eggs for their infertility treatment as if they used fresh ones.

The move is expected to help cancer patients preserve their fertility, by pushing more insurers to pay for their procedure, and to boost banking of donated eggs, similar to sperm banking. Read full article.

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Fat Teenage Boys Could be Impotent and Infertile Later in Life

brigitte

Obese teenage boys have up to 50 per cent less testosterone than their leaner pals – increasing their risk of infertility in later life, a study has found.

Researchers said the results were a ‘grim message’ for overweight young adults.

The study by scientists at the University at Buffalo in the U.S shows for the first time that obese young men aged 14 to 20 have around half the total testosterone than normal weight youths. Read full article.

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Weight Loss Does Not Improve Fertility

brigitte

HERSHEY, Pa. — Losing weight does not lead to improved fertility in women, but does improve sexual function, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

“Obesity in women has been linked to lack of ovulation and thus infertility,” said Richard Legro, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “Obesity, especially centered in the abdomen, among infertile women seeking pregnancy is also associated with poor response to ovulation induction and with decreased pregnancy rates.”

Obese women are often told to lose weight prior to conception, so researchers looked at changes in reproductive function after gastric bypass surgery. One way to learn more about the effects of obesity on reproduction is to study women after bariatric surgery, since a large amount of weight is lost in a relatively short period of time. Each person can be studied while obese and after surgery to detect changes. Researchers report their findings in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Researchers followed 29 morbidly obese women — women whose body fat accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health — of reproductive age for up to two years after Roux en Y gastric bariatric bypass surgery. Roux en Y is a procedure that creates a small pouch in the stomach that is directly connected to the midsection of the small intestine, bypassing the rest of the stomach and the upper portion of the small intestine. Read full article.

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Freezing Eggs To Make Babies Later Moves Toward Mainstream

brigitte

Doctors who specialize in treating infertility are making a big change in their position on a controversial practice. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has concluded that freezing women’s eggs to treat infertility should no longer be considered “experimental.”

The group plans to officially announce the change on Monday.

More and more women are using frozen eggs to try to have babies. Some older women use frozen eggs donated by younger women. Some younger women freeze their own eggs while they finish school, focus on their jobs or keep looking for the right guy.

That’s why Jennifer Anderson did it last year.

“I really wanted to have the traditional experience of falling in love and getting married, and then having children. But I know every person’s life path is different, and it hadn’t worked out for me yet to fall in love and get married,” says Anderson, 40, a consultant who lives in Arlington, Va.

So Anderson went to the Shady Grove Fertility clinic in Rockville, Md., to freeze some of her eggs. Read full article.