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(cz) Thirty years after the first test tube baby, firms are starting to acknowledge the need of would-be parents to take time off.
On Friday [July, 20th –ed.] Louise Brown will celebrate her 30th birthday. If you can’t quite place the name, she was the first child to be born through IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) - the trailblazer for one and a half million ‘test tube babies’ worldwide.
The science may now be well established - more than 32,500 women have IVF treatment in the UK every year, producing 9,000 full-term pregnancies and 11,000 babies, including the multiple births - but funding arrangements are still struggling to catch up, as many couples struggle to get the necessary time off work and to pay for the treatment.
However, 2008 could come to be seen as a breakthrough year. Employers are starting to develop formal policies to help couples, following a European Court of Justice case brought against her employer by Sabine Mayr, an Austrian waitress. In February the court ruled that sacking a woman because she was receiving IVF was sex discrimination.
The ruling will also apply to ‘less favourable treatment stopping short of dismissal’, according to solicitors Eversheds. An employer who, for example, failed to promote a woman because she was feeling unwell and taking time off during the IVF course could also be on difficult ground. Since damages for sex discrimination are unlimited - averaging £10,000 in employment tribunals in 2006-07 - well-organised employers are taking the issue seriously.
Banking group HSBC, which has 40,000 staff in the UK, gives up to 20 days’ paid leave for IVF treatment, but finds that women rarely need more than 12 of them. Asda is another leading light. Women among its 165,000-strong workforce can get up to five paid days off a year for fertility treatment - and men (either as partners or if having treatment themselves) can have up to one and a half days. Asda claims that when it introduced its scheme in 2003 it was the first UK employer to give paid leave. more…

From: »The Guardian«

(sz) “Baby of the century” ran the front-page headline of the Daily Express on July 11th, 1978. The paper promised the story of Lesley Brown, who was barricaded inside Oldham and District General Hospital, near Manchester, waiting to give birth. The world’s press was camped outside; the front doors locked and staff forced to sneak in and out via a side entrance. Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, the obstetrician and physiologist who had, nine months before, taken an egg from one of Mrs Brown’s ovaries under anaesthetic and fertilised it in vitro with her husband’s sperm, were in hiding. It had been, said Time magazine after Mrs Brown was delivered of a daughter on July 25th, “the most awaited birth in perhaps 2,000 years”.
Thirty years after Louise Brown was born, “test-tube babies” are commonplace. Around the world 3.5m have been born and at least 200,000 more join them each year. Yet infertile people in the country where it all began are among the least likely in the rich world to receive what is now a standard treatment for their condition. Just under 700 attempts at in vitro fertilisation (IVF) are carried out per million Britons each year, one of the lowest rates in Europe. The 11,262 IVF babies born in Britain in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, were just 1.6% of all births, compared with rates of 3-3.5% in the Nordic countries. more…

From: »The Economist«

(wz) Seven women who donated eggs as part of a world-first medical research programme are expecting babies.
The women donated eggs in return for cut-price in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment at the Newcastle Fertility Centre.
The eggs are being used by the North East England Stem Cell Institute (Nesci) - a collaboration between Durham and Newcastle Universities - for pioneering research into stem cell therapies.
The egg-sharing programme has been condemned by groups opposed to stem cell research.
However, it has meant that scientists have access to a much larger pool of donated human eggs. This has given them an international advantage in the race to develop treatments for conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Professor Alison Murdoch, who is leading the project at Nesci, said: “We’re delighted that this scheme has enabled so many couples to have a family from IVF treatment. Their choice to take part in the egg-sharing scheme means that important research is able to progress and we hope these successes will encourage other people to come forward.” more…

From: »The Press Association«

(wz) Childless couples are being exploited by ‘fertility clinics’, which are mushrooming all over the country. The central government is on the verge of coming out with a special law to regulate the working of these clinics, according to a statement in the Supreme Court of India made by the government last week.
This admission by the government exposes the mercenary ways of doctors, quacks and others in exploiting the demand for a child, which is an essential for a ‘successful marriage’ in an Indian family.
In a country where a woman is ‘incomplete’ unless she conceives (particularly a male progeny), the agony of a woman who does can only be imagined. An ‘infertile’ woman is often driven to desperation and depression. In this scenario come the babas, quacks and those with hi-tech formulae promising fertility to the ‘barren’ woman. It is an altogether different issue that about 55% cases of infertility arise due to problems in the male partner.
Males are often teased by their colleagues in office for their inability to ‘impregnate their wives’. While modern medicine practitioners have techniques like in-vitro fertilisation, injection of sperm into the ovum and even surrogate pregnancy, other practitioners sell a variety of ‘sexual tonics’, potions and concoctions. more…

From: »DNA« (Mumbai)

(wz) A costly fertility treatment originally introduced for men with poor quality sperm is now the most popular form of IVF in Europe.
Doctors are concerned that the procedure, called intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is being used too often. One leading expert said he thought ICSI was being “pitched” to patients by competing private clinics.
ICSI, which involves injecting a sperm cell directly into an egg, is more complex and expensive than regular In-Vitro Fertilisation and carries a greater risk of passing male genetic defects on to offspring. It was first introduced in 1992 to treat infertility caused when a man had a very low sperm count, or his sperm was not active.
Professor Anders Nyboe Andersen, chairman of Eshre’s European IVF Monitoring Consortium, said the shift to ICSI could not be explained by more couples seeking help with male-related infertility.
“More than half of all ICSI cycles are now done in couples without a diagnosis of severe male factor infertility,” he told the annual meeting of Eshre in Barcelona.
“It is being used increasingly when couples are classified as having mixed causes of infertility, unexplained infertility, or because they are older - in their late 30s or early 40s.”
But Prof Nyboe Andersen stressed there was no evidence that ICSI achieved better pregnancy rates per embryo transfer than ordinary IVF. more…

From: »The Press Association«

(sz) After 30 years of IVF, the rewards of treatment are still largely confined to industrialised countries and those who can afford it. Now, a Special Task Force of ESHRE has set about the immeasurable task of making fertility treatment more accessible to developing countries through a programme of pilot projects, professional awareness and involvement of government and non-governmental agencies.
The Task Force faces a huge challenge. According to a report just published in a special monograph of the journal Human Reproduction even the most basic questions about infertility in developing countries cannot yet be answered: how should infertility be defined; how often does it occur; what is the burden-of-disease; what can be spent on health care; how cost-effective should IVF be in order to compete with other interventions . . . and so on.
However, if the task is great, the need is even greater. According to Professor Oluwole Akande from University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria - who spoke at a press conference on Monday 7th July at 12.00 - infertility in developing countries raises problems beyond those known to developed nations. “In poor resource areas,” he said, “the need for infertility treatment in general, and IVF in particular, is great. The inability to have children can create enormous problems, particularly for the woman. more…

From: »Science Daily«

(cz) Ruskinn Life Sciences is heralding a breakthrough in IVF treatment at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) annual conference with the unveiling of Ac-tive®, an innovative new technology capable of significantly boosting in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) conception rates. The state-of-the-art gas controlled device mimics ‘in-utero’ conditions for all IVF manipulations in a single workstation. According to Ruskinn, recent clinical trials in Denmark have demonstrated an increase in clinical pregnancy rates by up to 50% in an already successful IVF laboratory using the Ac-tive workstation.
According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the average IVF success rate (take home baby rate) for women under 35 years of age is 29.6%1. Using the Ac-tive IVF workstation, IVF clinics could potentially increase their “take home baby rate” by 50% - from a successful 29.6% to a possible 44.4%. Ac-tive results in the production of less stressed embryos, which suggests improved implantation in the uterus and ultimately increased pregnancy rates.
Due to the delicate nature of embryology, slight changes in the environmental conditions can greatly affect the IVF outcome. more…

From: »Medical News Today«

(wz) An Indian woman has become the world’s oldest mother - by having twins at the age of 70.
Omkari Panwar gave birth to a boy and a girl by Caesarean section last week.
Husband Charan, 75, who sold his buffalo to pay for her IVF treatment, is thrilled he finally has an heir to pass his land to.
The couple already have two adult daughters - the elder is 38 - and six grandchildren.
The twins, who have been named Sawan and Barsat, were born a month prematurely in the rural town of Muzaffarnagar.
They weighed just 2lb 10oz each but doctors at the Jaswant Rai hospital said they were healthy and were expected to survive.
Omkari, who has no birth certificate, uses the date of India’s independence in 1947 to gauge her age.
She remembers being nine years old then, which would make her 70 now.
She takes the title of the world’s oldest mum from Romanian Adriana Iliescu, who was 66 when she gave birth to a daughter in 2005.
But Omkari is unperturbed by her new celebrity status.
She said: “If it is true, so what? It is of little benefit tome.
“If I am the world’s oldest mother, it means nothing tome.
“I just want to see my new babies and care for them while I am still able.”
Dad Charan told how he had to mortgage his land, sell his buffalo herd, spend his life savings and took out a credit card loan to finance the £4375 treatment.
The retired cattle farmer, whose village is seven miles north of the Indian capital New Delhi, longed for a boy to pass his land on to when he dies. more…

From: »The Daily Record«

(wz) Smokers have been banned from having IVF treatment, Wales on Sunday can reveal.
Hospitals have been accused of rationing IVF by denying the treatment to smokers.
And it is not just childless women that are being forced to give up the habit before they are considered for the fertility treatment.
Health Commission Wales, the country’s main health watchdog, said their partners must also quit smoking before the treatment is given.
IVF is only available through the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust in Wales at the moment. Women living in North Wales are expected to cross the border into England for treatment.
A spokesperson for Health Commission Wales confirmed the policy.
He said: “Couples or single women that smoke will only be accepted on to the IVF treatment waiting list if they agree to take part in a supported programme of smoking cessation and must be non-smoking at time of treatment. This is because smoke inhalation has a negative impact on the effectiveness of IVF treatment.” more…

From: »Wales Online«

(wz) A hospital in Ikeja, Lagos, St Ives Hospital, has successfully delivered its first In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) baby, a male, weighing 3.0kg. He was delivered after 37 weeks gestation period.
Speaking at the weekend on the breakthrough, Dr. Tunde Okewale, who led the delivery team, said IVF has become an acceptable method of assisting infertile couples.
The benefiting couple, it was gathered, had a few problems that had prevented them from having a baby, six years after they got married.
While the man had a low sperm count, the woman’s tube was suspected to have been blocked. But after undergoing fertility treatment, they now have their own baby.
Investigations revealed that Nigeria has about 12 IVF centres but the nation’s infrastructure problems have made it almost impossible for them to operate at their optimum.
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital is reputed to have pioneered advanced fertility treatment in 1989 but has no IVF centre. more…

From: »The Tide« (Nigeria)