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You know how today's young women are just waltzing through life, oblivious to their shriveling ovaries? Actually, for a lot of women (and men) the opposite is true — they wrongly assume they're infertile. And that can cause its own set of problems. More »
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Young people with cancer have a lot to contend with, and one major issue is the potential effect of treatment on their fertility. But young female patients say doctors are failing to discuss potential fertility problems with them. More »
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On one hand, we're practically beaten over the heads with the idea that eventually our ladygrapes are going to run out of juice. On the other, a poll suggests that women seem to be in mass denial of — or improperly educated about — the fact that fertility, like all things, must come to an end. How can the medical community make facts about infertility stick? Incessant nagging sure isn't working. More »
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There has long been speculation that women who undergo in vitro fertilization are at greater risk for ovarian cancer. It's been hard, however, to confirm this link because infertile women have a higher rate of ovarian cancer to start with. So it's difficult to sort out whether it's the underlying infertility or the IVF procedure (which requires stimulating ovaries with hormones) that's causing the cancer. More »
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Only four doctors in Mississippi perform in vitro fertilization, and since the state's so-called "Personhood Amendment" was added to the November ballot, they've all been receiving panicked calls from patients about the possibility that the state constitution might soon make many IVF practices illegal. More »
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A Canadian radio station sponsoring a "Win a baby!" contest has chosen the five lucky couples who will each receive $35,000 worth of IVF treatments, but not before telling them that only one couple would win. Hooray? More »
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In one of the many special cases complicating the abortion debate, a number of parents are choosing to abort one fetus when they discover they're carrying twins. This has created an ethical quagmire for parents and doctors alike. More »
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Infertility is one of the most difficult problems a couple can go through, and many people find discussing the issue with friends and family only makes things worse. A new study found that there are differences in the way men and women share information about their fertility problems with those around them, and there are ways to approach the topic that can make things somewhat easier for the couple. More »
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An estimated 15% of couples experience difficulty conceiving. Conventional wisdom blamed the woman for difficulties conceiving, but new research is showing that in nearly a third of cases, the man is the infertile partner. A newly discovered genetic variation in male sperm may be to blame in many cases. More »
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Martha Stewart's daughter Alexis told the ladies of The View today that she used multiple surrogates in her efforts to have a baby. And apparently, the surrogates got jealous. More »
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"The reality is that I have endometriosis, and I most likely couldn't get pregnant. I've had the X-rays, my tubes are closed, the uterine lining is too thick, blah, blah, blah. I was ashamed about it because I thought I'm supposed to be the healthiest woman in the world, and what does this say about me if I can't have kids of my own. It was insecurity, which I have to work on." —Biggest Loser trainer/shouter Jillian Michaels, who once famously said that she wouldn't get pregnant because she "can't handle doing that to [her] body." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5781547&view=rss&microfeed=true Researchers found IVF patients who use donor eggs and their own uterus usually have smaller babies than surrogates who carry an infertile woman's embryo, leading doctors to conclude uterine environment may be more important than egg quality for healthy babies. More »
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While the headline sounds a little Beverly Hillbillies, the circumstances of the birth of baby Finnean Connell were more along the lines of The Six Million Dollar Man. We can repair him! We have the technology! More »
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A European Science Foundation report found that mass infertility among European men is caused by a decreased sperm count, which is linked to obesity. At least this time, it's not our fault? More »
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There was a good article in the Washington Post earlier this week about being infertile on Facebook.  I was never on Facebook during vulnerable times, so I don't know quite how it feels.  I can vividly imagine it, though.  More »
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Dr. Michael Kamrava, Nadya Suleman's fertility specialist, may have his license suspended or revoked at a hearing today in L.A. He's accused of gross negligence for implanting 12 embryos in Suleman and not referring her to a mental health professional. More »
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Think Jennifer Aniston gets too much flak for her supposedly miserable, baby-hungry existence? Then join Mommy bloggers in piling on every other childless woman in Hollywood instead! More »
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Today's no-shit study says infertility can do a number on a couple's sex life. Just like fertility! More »
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When we called for personal experiences with egg donation, readers responded — with tales of intense screening processes, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, guilt, and fulfillment. More »
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As we noted last week, couples are willing to pay big bucks for the eggs of women with high SAT scores. But as many a former college girl knows, they'll shell out for race, height, and soccer skills too. More »
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In an interview with abcnews.com, Giuliana Rancic addresses Whoopi Goldberg's comment last week that "if she wants to have a baby, she needs to eat." Giuliana insisted she doesn't have an eating disorder, despite her apparent obsession with celebrities' diets. More »
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On last night's episode, many of the Henricksons found themselves in danger—at the hands of a Mexican cartel, gender-bending polygamists, and anti-gaming Evangelicals—but it was Nicki's infertility and her mother's seemingly impossible pregnancy that were most compelling storylines. More »
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It's no secret that stoner guys have less active sperm, but scientists have recently figured out why their swimmers can't quite make it: they get prematurely "burned out" by the change in their internal pH. Bummer, man. [UPI] More »
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Today GMA visited fertility clinics where women can freeze their eggs. So far the procedure has only led to about 1,000 births worldwide, but reporter Kate Snow says, "for a lot of women, this is empowering." Clip at left. More »
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British scientists have performed successful womb transplants in two rabbits, using a new technique they say they can apply to humans within two years. More »
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According to a new study, the pesticides baby boys absorb through breast milk may lead to infertility and testicular cancer later in life. But a study author said the evidence isn't strong enough for women to give up breast-feeding. [True/Slant] More »
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According to scientists, many men are infertile because they are producing "super sperm" in an evolutionary attempt to get ahead in the arms race that is fertilization. The sperm are so super that multiple swimmers are reaching the egg. [DailyMail] More »
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Scientists say they've created the first human sperm from stem cells, but, as several news outlets hasten to reassure us, that doesn't mean we'll soon be "producing human life in a dish." More »
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Older women who undergo in vitro fertilization are often encouraged to shell out for pre-implantation genetic screening in an effort to determine the best embryos to implant. But there's increasing evidence that the screening does more harm than good. More »
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Scientists have found evidence that adult women have stem cells in their ovaries that let them generate more eggs, challenging the long-standing belief that women are born with a fixed number of ova. More »
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Slate's William Saleten is all over the IVF-regulation beat. Today, he follows up on the Georgia bill that was an ill-disguised effort to confer personhood on cell clusters. It was amended, but still has issues. More »
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In an apparent reaction to the Nadya Suleman case, Georgia politicians have introduced a bill that would limit the number of embryos implanted in a woman, and prevent the freezing additional embryos. More »
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Two new ad campaigns aim to educate younger women about infertility: although one gives women the facts on fertility and the other makes false claims, both, one could argue, use fear as a major motivation. More »
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With another day comes yet another study of the effects of abortion on women. The newest study by researchers at Johns Hopkins shows that what little hard scientific research exists on how women feel after an abortion indicates that women who have abortions don't tend to have more emotional problems than ones that don't. This is, of course, the opposite of the New Zealand study that came out this week. To help dispel any remaining confusion, we've put all the things abortion might or might not do to you are after the jump. But, so that you can play along, it's your job to separate the God's honest truth accepted by every scientist, pro-choice activist and anti-abortion advocate from the drivel. More »
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New York Times rich person-chronicler and plastic surgery enthusiast Alex Kuczynski wrote the cover story for the this Sunday's Times Magazine about having a baby through a surrogate. A couple of things are evident: Kuczynski worries too much about what her peers think, she is fairly flippant about the things her enormous wealth allows her to do, and that women face a ridiculous amount of judgment about their mothering choices. More »
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While women in the U.S. often struggle with infertility, it can be truly devastating for women in other countries around the world, reports Newsweek. "If you are infertile in some cultures, you are less than a dog," says Willem Ombelet of the Genk Institute for Fertility Technology in Belgium. In certain societies, infertile women may not be invited to weddings. Often, people see them as having a "bad eye" that can make other women infertile, too. In Chad, a proverb says, "A woman without children is like a tree without leaves." In the Hindu religion, a woman without a child, particularly a son, can't go to heaven. In Muslim cultures, women without children aren't always allowed to be buried in graveyards or sacred grounds. Since the consequences of infertility can include ostracism, physical abuse and even suicide, Yale professor Marcia Inhorn says: "It's a human-rights issue." But in addition to treating infertility, shouldn't we also address the intolerance? [Newsweek] More »
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A recent study at Aberdeen University in Scotland reports that two common treatments for fertility are essentially ineffective. The two treatments that were tested — artificial insemination and the drug clomid — were found to have a minor success rate (14% for clomid and 23% for insemination) which is not much greater than the success rate of women with unexplained infertility who don't use fertility treatments. While researchers point out that clomid is useful for women who have problems with ovulation, and both treatments reassure infertile women trying to get pregnant, the cost and risk of the treatments can be damaging to the patients. [BBC] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5034691&view=rss&microfeed=true Notorious More »
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An unintentionally-hilarious passage from the May 2008 Marie Claire story "Hope In A Tank", about a woman (Sarah Elizabeth Richards, left) who froze her eggs: "After weeks of research, I found my way to Reproductive Medicine Associates (RMA), a posh fertility clinic...The procedure is still so new that only about 500 babies have been born through thawed eggs. I liked the fact that RMA had produced at least some babies; according to a recent study, they had gotten three of four clients pregnant. And part of me liked that the clinic was located on Madison Avenue, near excellent shopping and gelato." [Marie Claire] More »
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