It’s a complex, emotionally-loaded question: What kinds of women sell eggs to infertile couples in California? For Carol Hogan of the California Catholic Conference, the answer is simple. “Six-foot blondes with 4.0 GPA’s,” she says. But Hogan has a different picture of the women who might get paid to provide their eggs if Gov. Brown signs legislation to lift the ban on such compensation for research, as opposed to fertilization.
Tag: eggs
New Study Tracks Emotional Health of ‘Surrogate Kids’
Over the past decade the number of births involving surrogacy with donor eggs and sperm has surged. What, experts wondered, does this mean for the mental and emotional health of the growing number of kids who may or may not know the truth about their distinctive origins?
California Bill Poised to Lift Restrictions on Egg Donation
California is set to pass a bill that would allow payments over and above ‘direct expenses’ to be made to women who donate eggs for research.
Researchers Shed New Light on Egg Freezing Success Rates
Researchers from New York Medical College and the University of California Davis have for the first time codified age-specific probabilities of live birth after in vitro fertilization (IVF) with frozen eggs.
Very Late Motherhood
Yes, a menopausal women could potentially conceive and deliver a child using her own eggs if they were retrieved and frozen while they were still of good quality, said Dr. Laurence C. Udoff, medical director of the Genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax, Va.
Scientists Test Experimental Chemotherapy Drug
One of the greatest fears of younger women who have to undergo chemotherapy to fight tumors is possible fertility damage. But the mechanism responsible for the destruction of the eggs in their ovaries and the resultant infertility has not been understood until now.
Fertility Care Would Be Covered Under California Bill
When Alice Crisci was diagnosed at age 31 with an aggressive form of breast cancer, she paid to have her eggs harvested as part of a costly procedure before undergoing cancer treatment.
What is In Vitro Fertilization?
In vitro fertilization (IVF), is a form of assisted reproductive technology. In IVF, sperm are combined with an egg or eggs in a Petri dish in an attempt to achieve fertilization. The embryos which result from this process are then …
Infertility doctors and couples are fuming over a proposed bill in North Dakota
Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) — A controversial piece of a abortion bill before the North Dakota Senate, has some couples and their infertility doctors fuming.
Senate Bill 2302 would limit the number of embryos a physician could transfer, and it would prevent a woman diagnosed with cancer, from storing embryos during chemotherapy.
Kathy Burgau, back in 1998, told the story of her cancer battle, hoping to have a family after chemotherapy, she had embryos frozen, so she could have children after cancer treatment. That was done here in Fargo, but this bill before the North Dakota senate tomorrow, does not allow us to freeze any embryos. It would make that illegal.
Dr. Stephanie Dahl, Reproductive Medicine Specialist: “If the bill passes, couples who want to freeze embryos before chemo, would have to go out of state. It is available now.”
And not just cancer patients. The proposed bill would limit the number of fertilized eggs an invitro-fertilization specialist could transfer into a patient during that cycle to two eggs. It could financially and emotionally cripple couples trying to conceive by way of IVF. Read full article.
Promising Solution To Revitalizing Aging Egg Cells
An Ottawa scientist has discovered a critical reason why women experience fertility problems as they get older. The breakthrough by Dr. Johne Liu, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor at the University of Ottawa, also points to a simple solution that could increase the viability of egg cells for women in their late 30s and older – putrescine water.
In an online editorial published by Agingbased on his recently published findings, Liu outlines how a simple program of drinking water or taking a pill that contains the naturally occurring compound putrescine could reduce the rate at which middle-aged women produce eggs with the incorrect number of chromosomes, the leading cause of reduced fertility and increases in miscarriages and congenital birth defects.
Putrescine is naturally produced in mammals by an enzyme called ornithine decarboxylase,or ODC, and is easily absorbed and cleared by the body. In female mammals, ODC levels are known to rise during ovulation, when the egg cell matures and is released from the ovary. Dr. Liu has shown that ODC levels rise very little in older females. He has also shown that inhibiting ODC levels in young mice leads to an increase in egg cells with chromosomal defects. Read full article.