A team of researchers found that women’s success rates using in vitro fertilization (IVF) did not improve much after the first three cycles. About one in three women had a baby after their first attempt with IVF, and nearly half …
Infertility
Oh, Baby: Octomom’s Doctor Could Lose His License
Who’s worried about Octomom? Initially goo-goo-ga-ga over the idea of octuplets, the public quickly changed its tune when announcement of the births was soon overshadowed by news of Nadya Suleman’s other six kids and her …
First Comes Cancer, Then Come Children: The New World of Oncofertility
Cancer used to be an old people’s disease. No longer: we all have friends and colleagues — young people, in their 20s, 30s, 40s — who’ve been on the receiving end of a scary diagnosis. The good news is that a verdict of …
Lawsuit over Children Born the Wrong Color After IVF
A Northern Irish High Court judge has declined to award damages to a family who sued a health trust that provided in vitro fertilization (IVF) services for using the wrong sperm and causing their two children to be born darker …
Is the Catholic Church’s Argument Against IVF a Bit Holey?
When biologist Robert Edwards, who perfected in vitro fertilization (IVF) more than 30 years ago, was awarded the Nobel Prize on Oct. 4, public reaction was swift and divided.
Meet the Woman Who Gave Away Eight Kids
The British Daily Mail, perhaps in honor of the Nobel won Monday by IVF pioneer Robert Edwards, brings us up to date with the slow-food version of the Octomom. Jill Hawkins, a 45-year-old legal secretary, recently gave birth to her eighth child in 19 years, all now being raised other people.
Getting Paid to Procreate in Taiwan: Is $640 Enough?
In China, overpopulation has led to a one-child rule for many couples. Its neighbor, Taiwan, has the opposite problem: Its birthrate dropped to a record low last year. With less than 20,000 babies born, moms and dads will soon …
IVF Pioneer Robert Edwards Wins Nobel Prize
Thirty two years after the first test tube baby was born, the biologist who was the first to successfully mix egg and sperm in a lab dish and generate a healthy human baby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Building a Brighter Kid: Consider IVF
Most parents-in-waiting like to daydream that their unborn child might develop a cure for cancer or improve upon the theory of relativity — in short, save the world. Now, new research indicates that your best shot of …
Study: IVF Causes Higher Rates of Baby Boys
Though the ratio of boys to girls born in the United States has been on the decline for decades, new research found that moms who use in vitro fertilization might increase the number of male babies.
Boy or Girl? Change Your Diet, Micromanage Sex — and Other Pregnancy Myths
After I had my son, I desperately wanted a girl. When I got pregnant again, I was so convinced another XY was on the way that when the doctor delivered our daughter (XX, that is) and announced as much, I asked my husband: “Is …
Stress may delay pregnancy, study finds
Women with mental stress may have more trouble conceiving than their unstressed peers, a new study shows. Among 274 English women, all trying to get pregnant, those with the highest levels of alpha-amylase — a salivary biomarker for stress — had an estimated 12% reduction in their chance of getting pregnant each menstrual cycle, …
Policy change aims to reduce C-section rate
New guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published in the August issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology aim to reduce the national C-section delivery rate by shifting policy to enable more women to attempt vaginal births after an initial C-section.
Among the factors contributing to the
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