Month: February 2013

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Frozen egg procedure benefits couple coping with infertility

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Nurse assisting with egg retrieval procedureSALT LAKE CITY — Egg freezing had long been labeled experimental, but in October the American Society for Reproductive Medicine declared that’s no longer the case.

The first baby in Utah conceived from a frozen egg was actually delivered nearly three years ago. Kirk and Heather Larson thought it might be their last chance for getting pregnant. Now, they thank God and science for their family.

“At first the donor egg part was really kind of mind-blowing,” Heather said. “We had never heard of anything like that. We didn’t know if we were comfortable with it.”

Premature ovarian failure left Heather unable to produce eggs.

“One day it just sank in to me and became clear to me that doing in vitro with a donor egg is not that much different than adoption. I’m just adopting an egg,” she said.

However, Heather’s first two attempts at in vitro fertilization failed. The Larsons began the adoption process. Then out of the blue they were offered a unique opportunity to participate in an experimental procedure at the Reproductive Care Center in Sandy using a frozen egg. Read full article.

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When the Law Says a Parent Isn’t a Parent

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Reproductive battleIt is easy to interpret the popularity of a network television series like “Modern Family” as proof that we have mainstreamed the various and sweeping ways domestic life has reshaped itself over the past two decades. A nation of squares would not embrace a comedy about a badly dressed, middle-aged gay couple raising an adopted Vietnamese baby, we tell ourselves, no matter what they might say in Copenhagen or Berlin.

Gay rights are moving forward; single women now account for 41 percent of all births. Americans build caring families with lovers, friends and neighbors; from one-night stands and anonymous providers of genetic material. And yet, even in a place as progressive as New York, the legal system has been slow to synchronize to these altered realities.

It is hard to imagine anyone experiencing this more viscerally right now than a man named Jonathan Sporn, a 54-year-old pharmaceuticals executive living on the Upper West Side, who in a sense has fallen prey to a system that excessively privileges the conventional family models from which there seems to be a growing exodus. Read full article.

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Birth Control Rule Altered to Allay Religious Objections

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday proposed yet another compromise to address strenuous objections from religious organizations about a policy requiring health insurance plans to provide free contraceptives, but the change did not end the political furor or legal fight over the issue.

The proposal could expand the number of groups that do not need to pay directly for birth control coverage, encompassing not only churches and other religious organizations, but also some religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and social service agencies. Health insurance companies would pay for the coverage.

The latest proposed change is the third in the last 15 months, all announced on Fridays, as President Obama has struggled to balance women’s rights, health care and religious liberty. Legal experts said the fight could end up in the Supreme Court. Read full article.

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KCTV5 Special Report: Association found between chemicals and early menopause

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KansasCity5FAIRWAY, KS (KCTV) – It was Benjamin Franklin who famously said, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” Women can add a third certainty to that list: menopause. There is no way around this body change that marks an end to a woman’s fertility.

For women like Olathe resident Michele Zook, menopause means learning to deal with an array of unpleasant symptoms including hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances and mood swings.

“It’s crappy. It’s disruptive. It’s unpredictable. It sucks,” Zook said. Zook’s menopause kicked in at the expected time, her early 50s.

She is being treated by obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Danielle Staecker, a University of Kansas Hospital physician who’s been practicing medicine for two decades. In the last few years, Staecker says she’s noticed a shift in the women she sees for menopause.

“I’m definitely seeing more women having symptoms of menopause at an earlier age,” Staecker said.

Research conducted at Washington University in St. Louis is providing a possible first clue to those increased cases of early menopause.

Dr. Amber Cooper and a team of researchers studied the blood and urine samples of 5,708 women, looking at more than 100 different chemicals. They were able to make an association between women in early menopause and elevated levels of phthalates, man-made chemicals known to mimic estrogen. Read full article.

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Va. eugenics victims would receive compensation for sterilization under bill

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EugenicsIn Richmond — E. Lewis Reynolds was just a boy when his cousin hit him in the head with a rock, nearly killing him and triggering epileptic-like convulsions that lingered for some years.

His condition didn’t stop him from enlisting in the Marine Corps or serving his country in Korea and Vietnam during a 30-year military career.

But it was enough to classify a teenager as a “defective person” and order his compulsory sterilization under an infamous 1924 Virginia law whose aim was to build a more perfect society.

The state has already offered a formal apology for a selective-breeding policy that led to the sterilization of hundreds of mostly poor, uneducated men and women and served as one of the models for eugenics programs in other states and even Nazi Germany.

Now Reynolds, 85, thinks it’s time that Virginia pay compensation, too, to him and perhaps hundreds of others. Read full article.

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Sperm donors who know parents can apply to see children, court rules

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spermSperm donors who know the parents to whom they have donated can apply for contact with their biological children, a court has ruled. Previously this was not allowed.

Following Thursday’s ruling straight and gay couples who are considering conceiving using a sperm donor they know are being urged to establish the childrearing equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement – a co-parenting deal.

The case, the first of its kind, involves two lesbian couples who were friends with a gay male couple. All three couples are in civil partnerships. One of the gay men is the biological father of both the children of one of the lesbian couples, the other man is the biological father of one child who is being brought up by the second lesbian couple.

The male couple applied to the family court for contact and residency of their biological children. The women contested the application, saying that this would infringe on their family life, but lost. Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act same-sex couples are legal parents of children conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos in the same way that heterosexual couples are. Read full article.

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Sexual and Relationship Dysfunction Is the True Cost of Porn

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womenOver the past several years, I’ve written extensively on the nature and effects of pornography abuse. (Visit here andhere for some basic information.) I am pleased to see that with Ricky Camilleri’s recent HuffPostLive interview of Isaac Abel and others that this issue is finally hitting the cultural zeitgeist. The points made in the interview are very much on target, although the discussion barely scratches the surface.

The simple, undeniable fact is young people — digital natives — are texting, tweeting, chatting, blogging, posting and otherwise communicating and being entertained by and through digital technology on an almost constant basis. For instance, a recent Pew Internet & American Life survey revealed that texting is now the primary mode of communication between teens and their friends and family, far surpassing phone calls, face-to-face interactions and emailing. Boys and young men in particular are susceptible to the lure of digital technology, burying themselves for hours on end in ultra-violent video games and, more importantly, online porn. Read full article.

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Girl born through in vitro fertilization, others testify on abortion before N.D. Legislature

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Alexis GrabingerBISMARCK — When Alexis Grabinger was in the womb, that womb belonged to her aunt.

The Jamestown High School senior and daughter of Democratic state Sen. John Grabinger, told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning that she would not be alive if her mother had not been allowed to produce multiple eggs for in vitro fertilization. The other eggs were later destroyed, something that would be considered an abortion under a resolution before the committee.

“I strongly believe my parents and the doctors are not abortionists, but rather miracle workers who brought life when there was none,” Alexis said.

Alexis was speaking in opposition to Senate Concurrent Resolution 4009, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Sitte, R-Bismarck, which proposes to amend North Dakota’s constitution by simply adding, “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and defended.” Read full article.

 

 

 

 

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Ottawa fertility doctor accused of inseminating women with wrong sperm

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Ottawa Wrong SpermAn Ottawa fertility doctor faces a disciplinary hearing Thursday over allegations he artificially inseminated three women with the wrong sperm.

Dr. Bernard Norman Barwin, a celebrated gynecologist, could lose his licence if the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario discipline panel finds he committed misconduct.

He agreed last year to stop the practice of insemination after the college filed its notice of hearing.

The medical college alleges that three of Dr. Barwin’s patients discovered their children aren’t biologically related to their husband or, in one case, the patient’s chosen donor.

Two women with the same allegations sued Dr. Barwin a few years ago. The lawsuits were resolved last year, but neither the women’s lawyer nor Dr. Barwin’s lawyer could discuss the terms. Read full article.

 

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Cancer gene mutation linked to earlier menopause

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(Reuters Health) – Women carrying BRCA mutations tied to breast and ovarian cancer may hit menopause a few years earlier than other women, according to a new study.

Doctors already discuss with those women whether they want immediate surgery to remove their ovaries and breasts, or if they want to start a family first and hold off on ovary removal.

“Now they have an additional issue to deal with,” said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, who worked on the new study at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

An estimated one in 600 U.S. women carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation.

Those mutations greatly increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer at some point in her life increases from 12 to 60 percent with a BRCA mutation, and ovarian cancer from 1.4 percent to between 15 and 40 percent. Read full article.