Category Archives: Human Reproduction

Chinese University doctors have discovered that infertile women lack the necessary genetic process in their uterus which makes them unable to conceive even if they use in-vitro fertilization.

The new cause of implantation failure does not only solve one of the long-standing mysteries of human reproduction but also sheds new light on the cause of miscarriages and low success rate of test-tube baby techniques.

It also opens a new way for diagnosing infertility and contraception - or even an anti-pill that will reverse infertility, said Chan Hsiao-chang, Li Ka Shing professor of physiology and director of Epithelial Cell Biology Research Centre at the university.

The ground-breaking study, published in last month's issue of Nature Medicine, came ahead of the grand opening ceremony yesterday of the Lo Kwee- Seong Integrated Biomedical Sciences Building, as the university stakes its claim to be the leader in biomedical research in the SAR.

Chan said for pregnancy to occur, women need to have an epithelial sodium channel in their uterus as an initial starting point. Without that channel, women cannot have the embryo implanted in their womb.

The next step we propose is to have an infertility diagnostic tool. The other one could be the target for contraception by targeting the channel to prevent pregnancy, she said.

Director of the School of Biomedical Sciences professor Chan Wai-yee said the discovery of this sodium channel could also be used to find an anti- contraceptive pill for women to conceive.

Patents have been filed for the discovery but the university still has to find interested companies to take it further. However, the center will focus on cutting-edge technologies to study cancer and inflammation, neuro-degeneration and reproduction, thanks to a HK$150 million donation by Vitasoy founder Lo Kwee-seong, Chan Wai-yee said.

Dean of Medicine Fok Tai-fai said: Corporate support of research is important. There is nothing unethical in itself unless there is ulterior motive. (The Standard)

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Why Some Women Fail To Give Birth

Public release date: 29-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Emma Mason wordmason@mac.com European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology

One of the largest studies to look at the effect of induced abortions on a subsequent first birth has found that women who have had three or more abortions have a higher risk of some adverse birth outcomes, such as delivering a baby prematurely and with a low birth weight.

The research, which is published online in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1] today (Thursday), found that among 300,858 Finnish mothers, 31,083 (10.3%) had had one induced abortion between 1996-2008, 4,417 (1.5%) had two, and 942 (0.3%) had three or more induced abortions before a first birth (excluding twins and triplets). Those who had had three or more induced abortions had a small, but statistically significant increased risk of having a baby with very low birth weight (less than 1500g), low birth weight (less than 2500g), or of a preterm birth (before 37 weeks), or very preterm birth (before 28 weeks), compared to women who had had no abortions. There was a slightly increased risk of a very preterm birth for women who had had two induced abortions.

Dr Reija Klemetti, an associate professor and senior researcher in public health at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland, who led the research, said: "Our results suggest that induced abortions before the first birth, particularly three or more abortions, are associated with a marginally increased risk during the first birth. However, the increased risk is very small, particularly after only one or even two abortions, and women should not be alarmed by our findings."

Most of the induced abortions (88%) were surgically performed and nearly all (91%) were performed before 12 weeks gestation. The researchers adjusted their findings to take account of various factors that could affect birth outcomes, such as social background, marital status, age, smoking, previous ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. Multiple births (twins and triplets) were excluded.

The risk of having a baby born very preterm appeared to increase slightly with each induced abortion, but only the risk from two abortions or more was statistically significant.

"To put these risks into perspective, for every 1000 women, three who have had no abortion will have a baby born under 28 weeks," said Dr Klemetti. "This rises to four women among those who have had one abortion, six women who have had two abortions, and 11 women who have had three or more."

Among women who had had three or more abortions, there was a statistically significant increased risk of a third (35%) of having a baby born preterm (before 37 weeks), a two-fold (225%) increased risk of very low birth weight, and a two-fifths (43%) increased risk of low birth weight.

The study also showed a small increased risk of a baby's death around the time of birth. However, the numbers for this finding were very low (1498 births or five per 1000 babies) and so should be treated with caution. In addition, the authors say they might not have been able to fully adjust for all the factors that could affect this result and perinatal deaths are sensitive to social factors such as poverty.

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Increased risk of prematurity and low birth weight in babies born after 3 or more abortions

Rep. Todd Akin's fame -- more accurately, his infamy -- now reaches all the way to the Congo.

There, Eve Ensler, the award-winning American author of "The Vagina Monologues" and herself a survivor of rape, wrote an open letter castigating last week's suggestion by the Republican congressman that when a woman is a victim of "legitimate rape," her body has means of preventing pregnancy. As it happens, Ensler is in the Congo working to help some of the thousands of women raped in the fighting there. She called Akin's words "ignorant."

Nor is hers the only voice of international opprobrium. Criticism of the Missouri lawmaker has rung from such far points as London ("shamefully inaccurate"), Belfast ("profoundly offensive") and Paris ("medieval"). A writer in Australia dubbed Akin a "boofhead" -- apparently, not a compliment. All this, plus domestic denunciation, including sharp criticisms from his own party.

Akin, make no mistake, richly earned every ounce of contempt that now rains upon his head. What he told KTVI-TV, the Fox affiliate in. St. Louis, manages to combine repulsiveness ("Legitimate rape?" As opposed, one supposes, to the rapes where "she brought it on herself"?) and remarkable ignorance (Does he really think the uterus is equipped with a force field?) into one appallingly malodorous ball of stupid. Naturally, given his grasp of biology, Akin sits on the House Science Committee.

Yes, you read right. You can't make this stuff up.

Still, this is not about one congressman's need for sensitivity training and remedial science. Akin is hardly unique, after all. To the contrary, he is just the latest vivid example of conservatism's unrelenting hostility toward women's reproductive rights -- as in a Texas judge who just upheld the state's ban on Planned Parenthood.

Indeed, even as this controversy was simmering, the GOP unveiled a proposed platform plank calling for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It's a plank Akin himself could have written.

But he is emblematic of more than hard-core opposition to abortion. In him, one also senses the juvenile discomfort with which some male conservatives are afflicted at the merest suggestion of female sexuality.

Think then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, piously covering the breasts of the "Spirit of Justice" statue at the Department of Justice. Think then-Rep. Tom Coburn decrying the "full-frontal nudity" of a movie broadcast on network television -- the movie being "Schindler's List," the nudes being doomed European Jews. Think Republicans banning Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking in the Michigan State House for using the word "vagina" -- as opposed, perhaps, to "lady parts," "third base" or "tunnel of love." Think Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut because she has, presumably, on occasion had sex.

It's the kind of behavior one associates with a locker room full of adolescent boys, waiting for their faces to clear up and their voices to change. But these are men. Worse, they are men who are judged competent to make, interpret or influence laws impacting the most intimate decisions a woman can make.

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The GOP and women: Akin's ignorance is hardly unique

When a viable sperm penetrates a viable egg inside a woman's reproductive tract, the result is a fertilized egg that can then implant in the uterus. That fact of life is consistent regardless of how that sperm and egg met up, including whether or not the sperm was ejaculated during rape.

That may be news to Rep. Todd Akin from Missouri who told a local television station, in explaining his stance that abortion should not be allowed even in the case of rape: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

NEWS: Boy or Girl? Mother Can Control Outcome

"Physiologically, if the sperm is in the vagina, a pregnancy can occur, regardless of the circumstances of how that sperm got there," said Dr. Melisa Holmes, an ob-gyn and founder of Girlology, an organization that promotes healthy sexuality and communication in families.

And though the anti-abortion Republican says he "misspoke," Holmes says that Akin's remark also suggests that some rapes are not "legitimate," and this continues a harmful misconception about violence against women.

"A rape is a rape, and a woman has the same physical and emotional consequences whether she's raped by a stranger in a dark alley or someone she's known for five years," Holmes told LiveScience. "That's one of those misperceptions that gets perpetuated and unfortunately affects women in a bad way -- 'Were you really raped, or were you at fault for part of it?'"

NEWS: Moderate Drinking and Miscarriage Linked

Perhaps Akin is correct in thinking it's not the easiest of tasks to get pregnant; that's why men don't ejaculate just one sperm and instead release nearly 100 million sperm. (Men who have fewer than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen may have difficulty conceiving, according to a WebMD article.) That's because few sperm survive the grueling journey from the vagina to the fallopian tubes where they can meet up with an egg. Even for those that make it, only the healthiest will penetrate, and fertilize, the egg. (11 Odd Facts About the Pregnant Body)

Still, of the 6.7 million pregnancies in the United States every year, about half are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The chance of getting pregnant from one event of unprotected sexual intercourse is 5 percent on average, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).

Original post:
Akin and Pregnancy: Yes, It Can Happen to Rape Victims

BACKGROUND

This 12th European IVF-monitoring (EIM) report presents the results of treatments involving assisted reproductive technology (ART) initiated in Europe during 2008.

METHODS

From 36 countries (3 more compared with 2007), 1051 clinics reported 532 260 treatment cycles including: IVF (124 539), ICSI (280 552), frozen embryo replacements (FER, 97 120), egg donation (ED, 13 609), in vitro maturation (IVM, 562), preimplantation genetic diagnosis/screening (PGD/PGS, 2875) and frozen oocyte replacements (FOR, 4080). Overall, this represents a 7.9% increase in the activity since 2007, which is mainly related to an increase in cycles from almost all registers and only partially to the new countries entering EIM (Estonia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Romania, 5480 cycles in total). European data on intrauterine insemination using husband/partner's (IUI-H) and donor (IUI-D) semen were reported from 27 and 21 countries, respectively. A total of 144 509 IUI-H (+1.5%) and 24 960 IUI-D (–4.3%) cycles were included.

RESULTS

In 19 countries where all clinics reported to the ART register, a total of 350 143 ART cycles were performed in a population of 369.8 million, corresponding to 947 cycles per million inhabitants. For IVF, the clinical pregnancy rates per aspiration and per transfer were 28.5 and 32.5%, respectively, and for ICSI the corresponding rates were 28.7 and 31.9%. In FER cycles, the pregnancy rate per thawing was 19.3%. The delivery rate after IUI was 9.1% for IUI-H and 13.8% for IUI-D. In IVF and ICSI cycles, one, two, three and four or more embryos were transferred in 22.4, 53.2, 22.3 and 2.1%, respectively. The proportions of singleton, twin and triplet deliveries after IVF and ICSI (combined) were 78.3, 20.7 and 1.0%, respectively, resulting in a total multiple delivery rate of 21.7%, compared with 22.3% in 2007, 20.8% in 2006 and 21.8% in 2005. In FER cycles, the multiple delivery rate was 13.7% (13.4% twins and 0.3% triplets). In women undergoing IUI, twin and triplet deliveries occurred in 10.6% and 0.7% with IUI-H and in 9.4 and 0.3% with IUI-D, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

In comparison with previous years, there was an increase in the reported number of ART cycles in Europe. For the first time in 5 years, the pregnancy rates failed to show a year-on-year increase. Compared with 2007, the number of transfers of multiple embryos (3+) and a multiple delivery rate showed a marginal decline.

Source:
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/rss/current.xml

STUDY QUESTION

Can the pronuclei (PN) morphology and the time of PN breakdown (PNB) predict the potential of embryos to result in live birth?

SUMMARY ANSWER

In comparison to embryos resulting in no live birth, PNB occurred significantly later in embryos resulting in live birth and never earlier than 20 h 45min. None of the tested scoring systems were shown to predict the live birth outcome in a time-lapse set-up.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY

The PN morphology is supported as a prominent embryo selection parameter in single light microscopy observations, although controversial results have been reported.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION

This was a prospective study of 159 embryos, all of which were later transferred. The PN morphology of 46 embryos which resulted in live birth was compared with that of 113 embryos which resulted in no live birth.

PARTICIPANTS, SETTING

From 1 March 2010 to 30 August 2011, 130 couples underwent fertility treatment by ICSI. Embryo culture was performed in a time-lapse set-up from fertilization to intrauterine transfer. PN morphological assessment was performed on every embryo replaced, using six different scoring systems at different times.

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE

No embryo with PNB earlier than 20 h 45 min resulted in live birth. All six PN assessment models showed no significant distribution of scores (P = NS) between the live birth and no live birth groups at 16 h post-fertilization (PF), 18 h PF and 40 min before PNB. The outcomes of assessments changed significantly (P < 0.001) over time and the time of PNB was found to be the optimal stage to evaluate the PN morphology.

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION

The study includes only embryos reaching the 4-cell stage after ICSI, and transferred at 44 h PF.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS

The PN morphology changes over time, indicating that the single light microscopy observation approach is deficient in comparison to time-lapse. Although the assessment of the PN morphology does not improve embryo selection, the timing of PNB should be included in embryo selection parameters.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)

None.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

Approval number from the National Ethical Committee of Medical Science of Denmark: SJ-250.

Source:
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/rss/current.xml