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(sz) […] It used to be that young couples would try for years to conceive naturally before seeking fertility treatments. IVF was typically a last resort for infertile couples.
But more young couples are turning to IVF as one of their first options in treating infertility. Toma, who runs the Cary center, sees 130 new patients a month, he said.
“It has gone up year after year” since he opened the center in 1992, he said.
Of the roughly 62 million American women of reproductive age in 2002, 10 percent had had an infertility-related medical visit at some point, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC also reports that in 2005, 134,242 fertility treatments were performed across the county and resulted in 52,041 infants. Many of the treatments produced multiple births. more…

From: »The News&Observer«

(sz) Poland’s new health minister, Ewa Kopacz, is in favour of in-vitro fertilisation being reimbursed from the country’s budget. As many as one million Polish couples suffer from infertility, but only 3,500 a year are able to afford the artificial fertilisation procedure.
According to Ms Kopacz, in the initial stage, reimbursement would cover the cost of medical treatment for the poorest Poles. It is estimated that if in-vitro fertilisation were reimbursed, between 25,000 and 28,000 procedures could be performed each year. more…

From: »PolishMarket« (Business portal for Poland)

(cz) Better NHS funding of fertility treatment will be crucial to the prevention of hazardous twin and triplet births, the IVF watchdog said yesterday as it announced a national strategy to reduce rates of multiple pregnancies.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) expects clinics to cut the proportion of twin and triplet pregnancies from one in four to one in ten over three years. Multiple births are the biggest health risk in IVF.
Instead of backing the target with the threat of restrictions on the transfer of multiple embryos, the regulator has chosen a voluntary approach by which professional groups will draw up guidelines on how it should be achieved. It called on the Government to pay for more free cycles of treatment to make the plan work.
Walter Merricks, the interim chairman of the HFEA, has written to Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, to press the case for better access. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends that three cycles of IVF should be offered to women under 40, yet the Government asks primary care trusts to offer just one and many have imposed restrictions on which patients qualify. more…

From: »The Times«

(wz) One in 64 babies is born after IVF, figures released today show, as more British couples seek fertility treatment and success rates reach an all-time high.
More than 32,000 women had IVF treatment in 2005, up six per cent on the previous year.
For women under the age of 35, the chances of success rose to almost 30 per cent - higher than the chances of natural conception.
Almost 6,000 women over the age of 40 underwent IVF treatment in 2005, giving birth to 1,006 babies, an increase on the previous year.
In total there were 722,500 babies born in Britain in 2005 - the latest year for which figures are available - 11,262 of which were a result of IVF. more…

From: »The Daily Telegraph«

(sz) A gene famous for its ability to suppress cancer may also play a role in pregnancy, scientists have learned.
P53, known as the “guardian of the genome”, helps the embryo implant itself in the wall of the womb, research suggests.
The discovery could in future form the basis of novel fertility treatments.
Without successful implantation, a pregnancy will fail. Lack of implantation is the most common cause of failed pregnancy after In-Vitro Fertilisation treatment.
P53 helps prevent cancer by protecting cells from stress-induced DNA damage. Many cancers are thought to involve something going wrong with the p53 mechanism.
Researchers are actively trying to develop drugs that fight cancer by regulating p53. more…

From: »The Press Association«

(wz) A noninvasive, polarised light microscope invented at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) played a crucial role in a recent breakthrough in embryonic stem-cell research aimed at developing medical therapies.
A team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, PhD, of Oregon Health and Science University reported the successful derivation of stem cells from cloned monkey embryos in the 22 November issue of Nature. While embryonic stem cells have been made from cloned embryos in a mouse, this is the first time they have been produced in a primate.
In humans, this method for deriving stem cells is a potential way to make ‘custom’ tissues that are genetically identical to a patient, which would avoid rejection by the patient’s immune system. Stem cells, in theory, can be induced to become any type of cell, tissue or organ. However, in recent years, some investigators had claimed it wouldn’t be technically possible to make embryonic stem cells from monkeys or humans using this method (somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning).
Mitalipov’s stem-cell derivation succeeded, he says, largely due to the Oosight microscope system developed by Cambridge Research and Instrumentation Inc. (CRi) of Woburn Mass., using technology invented at the MBL by senior scientist Rudolf Oldenbourg, PhD, and research associate Guang Mei, PhD Former MBL research scientists David L. Keefe, M.D., and Lin Liu, PhD, both of whom teach in the MBL’s Frontiers in Reproduction course, worked with Oldenbourg to adapt the technology for somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryology.
‘The use of the Oosight was one of the major modifications we made in our present work,’ Mitalipov says. more…

From: »Science Centric«

(sz) A cap will be set on the number of twins and triplets fertility clinics are allowed to produce in an attempt to reduce risky multiple pregnancies, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will publish on Monday the conclusions of its consultation on how to reduce the number of multiple pregnancies, which pose an increased risk to the mother and babies.
The HFEA is understood to be backing away from the introduction of immediate guidelines on which women should have only one embryo implanted at a time and instead favours plans to allow clinics to set out their own measures to reduce multiple pregnancies.
Some experts have called for the multiple pregnancy cap for clinics to be set at 10 per cent, but it is thought that the HFEA will set a more generous limit to begin with.
The policy on whether to move to single embryo transfer for certain patients will be kept under review and further changes may be added later, it is understood.
Parents have raised concerns that limiting certain couples, those aged less than 35 for example, to having only one embryo implanted in each cycle of treatment would reduce their chances of conceiving and raise the cost because they would have to undergo repeated treatments. more…

From: »The Daily Telegraph«

(cz) More than half of women who die after having a child are overweight, as the obesity epidemic drives up the death rate among new mothers, according to a report. The study finds acrylamide link to cancer in women. Almost 300 women died after having children between 2003-05, according to new figures.
And about 40 per cent of the deaths were avoidable, the Confidential Inquiry into Maternal and Child Health (Cemach) report will say.
The Cemach report criticises poor standards of care in maternity units, with healthcare workers unable to identify common complications or manage emergencies effectively, and junior staff being left in charge too often.
The report comes as campaigners warn that maternity services are in their worst state for 40 years.
The Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services have sent a letter to Gordon Brown in which they claim that mothers and babies are being put at risk by an acute shortage of midwives.
Last week a report by the Healthcare Commission disclosed that one in four pregnant mothers had been left on their own during labour because of staff shortages. more…

From: »The Daily Telegraph«

(sz) After six years of marriage, Reema and Nagesh wanted a child. Only, their wish isn’t as simple as it sounds. Nagesh is HIV-positive and didn’t want Reema to get infected ever.
The couple, who only want to be identified as residents of a big southern city, began visiting doctors and, of course, countless websites. They soon found an answer - assisted reproductive techniques (ART) better known as infertility treatment. “I found out after an intensive Google search that we could have a healthy baby using an ART procedure called ICSI,” reveals Nagesh.
After some infertility experts refused to take up their case, they flew down to Mumbai to meet Anjali and Aniruddha Malpani who had agreed on email to help them.
“Many people don’t know that it is possible and extremely safe for HIV-discordant couples (one person is HIV positive but the other is not) to have HIV-negative babies using ART,” says Anjali Malpani, who has helped four discordant couples conceive in the last one year.
Her husband, Aniruddha, points out that ART for HIV discordant couples is an established medical protocol. “Two medical journals, Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine , carried exhaustive studies highlighting this over five years back establishing a treatment protocol for HIV-discordant couples,” says Aniruddha. >more…

From: »The Times of India«

(wz) Mit 64 Jahren hat eine Frau ein Kind zur Welt gebracht. Schwanger wurde sie mit Hilfe einer Eizellenspende. Die Reproduktionsmedizin überschreitet damit eine Grenze: Kinder haben einen Anspruch auf viele gemeinsame Jahre mit ihren Eltern. Großmütter, die zu Müttern werden, sind zu alt, um ihren Kindern das zu bieten.
Nichts hat sich mehr in unseren kulturellen Vorstellungen eingenistet als das Bild von der jungen, im Saft des Lebens stehenden Mutter. Sie ist über Jahrhunderte hinweg der Inbegriff von Natürlichkeit und Schönheit geblieben. Erst die jüngste Zeit lehrte den Begriff der Spätgebärenden: Frauen, die die 30 überschritten haben. Heute noch gelten Schwangerschaften über 40 als äußerst riskant. Und doch geht die Grenzverschiebung weiter: Nicht nur werden Kinder Mütter, sondern gebären auch Frauen dank massiver biologischer Behandlungen, die das Klimakterium längst überschritten haben. Nun darf sich eine 64-Jährige „älteste deutsche Mutter“ nennen. Dies sei kein Wunder, so ein Arzt. Wohl wahr: Wunder rühren. Eine Groß-Mutter befremdet.
Ethisch-moralisch kann man dem Kinderwunsch schwerlich etwas entgegen setzen. Er passt in eine Gesellschaft, die ja gerade den Mangel an Kindern beklagt. Nur weil Kinder so rar sind, werden Wunsch und Wille fast schon sakral. Der Handel mit Eizellen, im Gegensatz zum Samen, ist in Deutschland verboten. Also wurde das später vom ebenfalls 64-jährigen Mann befruchtete Ei im Ausland „besorgt“. more…

From: »Die Welt«