Infertility Options
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a man’s children who were conceived through artificial insemination after his death cannot get Social Security survivor benefits.
Justices unanimously ruled that twins born to Robert Capato’s surviving wife Karen did not qualify for survivor benefits because of a requirement that the federal government use state inheritance laws.
The University of Notre Dame and dozens of other Catholic institutions sued President Barack Obama’s administration on Monday to block a government regulation that requires employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives to employees.
Childless women aged between 40 and 42 will be able to receive IVF on the NHS for the first time under proposals by the treatment regulator to help more people become parents.
New research just out, led by Dr. Paul Turek, a San Francisco-based specialist in male fertility and sexual health, shows that even very old vasectomies — as old as those done 38 years ago — can be reversed with good results, he says. “For decades, conventional wisdom has been that the older the vasectomy, the less likely that ejaculated sperm returns after microsurgical vasectomy reversal. But this may not be true,” said Turek in a press release about the new research, which was presented this week at the American Urological Association in Atlanta.
Turek and his colleagues studied 343 men who’d had vasectomy reversals, comparing those with “younger” vasectomies (those from one to 15 years old) and “older” vasectomies (those 16 to 38 years old) to see if there was a difference in the amount of the sperm in the ejaculate following the reversal. Says Turek, the research found that “older vasectomies up to 38 years did not have worse outcomes after reversal surgery.” That should be reassuring, he says, adding, “don’t be shy about looking into vasectomy reversal for a vasectomy older than 15 years; it can often be reversed quite well.” Turek notes that a limitation of his research was that it did not examine pregnancy rates, but only ejaculated sperm counts in men who’d had their vasectomies reversed.
If your husband has had a vasectomy and you’re considering a round of IVF, it may be worth talking to a specialist in reversals — not least because of the very different costs of the two procedures: “In general, a vasectomy reversal is about one-third to one-half the price of one IVF cycle,” notes Turek, adding that a reversal costs about $5,000 to $9,000, on average. About 5 to 7 percent of vasectomized men get a reversal procedure.
Turek adds that while “you can get great results reversing a vasectomy of any age in the right hands, the problem is that not everyone can do it well.” To find the right specialist, read Turek’s “Insider’s Guide to Vasectomy Reversal.”
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As the nation marks National Women’s Health Week, the PBS NewsHour will share the stories of three women — and their doctors — who refused to allow a cancer diagnosis to interfere with a successful pregnancy. These are their stories of hope, perseverance and, ultimately, success.
A federal district court in New York is weighing whether to force the federal government to lift the age restrictions on over-the-counter sale of emergency contraceptives. The Food and Drug Administration recommended allowing younger teens to buy the “morning after” pill without a prescription, but Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blocked the change in December with President Barack Obama’s blessing.
The FIGO Committee on Reproductive Medicine (FIGO CRM) was established in October, 2009 under the Chairmanship of Dr. David Adamson, (USA). Other Committee members include Siladitya Bhattacharya, Co-chair (UK), John Collins (Canada), Klaus Diedrich (Germany), Silke Dyer (South Africa), Egbert te Velde (Netherlands), Christine Robinson (UK), PC Wong (Singapore) and Fernando Zegers-Hochschild (Chile). The mission of the FIGO CRM is to create access to quality reproductive medical care for women across the world.
No one wants to hear it, but more disturbing news came out this week from the European Environment Agency (EEA) indicating that many household products, cleaners, cosmetics, and food contain chemicals that affect hormones — and not in a good way. On May 10, the organization issued a release saying that “endocrine-disrupting chemicals” — meaning ones that affect the hormone system by either blocking the normal effects of hormones or mimicking hormones — seem to be a contributing factor to “significant increases in cancers, diabetes and obesity, [and] falling fertility.” Since reproduction and fertility are, of course, directly tied to hormones, the effects of these chemicals on a woman’s ability to conceive and a man’s ability to get a woman pregnant may be even more pronounced.
The release went on to list some possible effects of these chemicals, including some that lead to low-quality semen in men. Animal studies have shown the chemicals affect the reproductive systems of a wide variety of animals. It’s very difficult to test the effects of these chemicals, since they could have been involved — and hindered — early development of a person’s reproductive system (as well as brain, immune, and other bodily systems), but the effects wouldn’t be seen for many years or decades.
Just as worrisome, another report came out this week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives with the finding from a Harvard University study that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may reduce a woman’s chances of conceiving if she’s undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). The study looked at 137 women who were having fertility treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center; the researchers measured BPA levels in the women at the time of treatment. What did they find? “The results show a clear trend of increasing implantation failure [in which an embryo doesn’t implant in a woman’s uterus] with higher BPA levels,” reported EnvironmentalHealthNews.org.
BPA is a very common chemical used in the manufacture of many plastics, including some water bottles, the linings of canned food, grocery store receipts, and other everyday items. The Environmental Working Group offers these tips to help lessen your exposure to BPA.
Fertility expert Dr. Robert Greene also offers this good advice about how to reduce your exposure to environmental toxins as you’re trying to conceive.
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More single women are taking matters into their own hands to start a family without a partner. They are part of a growing group called “Single Mothers by Choice.” Read full article.
A survey found almost half of South Australians believe embryos left over from fertility treatments should be used for research. Of the 2693 surveyed, 21 percent said the leftover embryos should be donated to would-be parents. Just 6 per cent believed they should be discarded.
