Category Archives: Fertility problems

‘Outrageous and unacceptable’: Biden and Harris decry Alabama court ruling on IVF

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President and vice-president speak out against ruling while Haley attempts to retract comments on embryos being babies

The decision of the Alabama supreme court on in vitro fertilization, granting legal protections to frozen fertilized eggs, drew fire from President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders on Thursday, laying responsibility for the decision on the US supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade in 2022.

“A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant,” Biden said in prepared remarks on Thursday. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”

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London hospital and Sheffield clinic affected by faulty egg-freezing products

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Guy’s hospital and Sheffield clinic may have used faulty freezing solution that could damage eggs and embryos

Scores of women have been affected by the use of a faulty freezing solution at fertility clinics in London and Sheffield, with frozen eggs and embryos potentially destroyed as a result, the fertility regulator has said.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirmed the issue was limited to Guy’s and St Thomas’ assisted conception unit in London, and Jessop Fertility in Sheffield.

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Scientists call for review of UK’s 14-day rule on embryo research

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Extending the limit could help uncover causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions, experts say

Scientists are calling for a review of the 14-day rule on embryo research, saying that extending the limit could help uncover the causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions.

Until now, scientists studying the earliest stages of life have been restricted to cultivating embryos up to the equivalent of 14 days of development. They can then pick up the path of development several weeks later, on pregnancy scans and from material donated from terminations.

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Call to help UK IVF patients donate unused embryos after shortage hinders research

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Scientists complain after ‘sheer waste’ of human embryos discarded despite patients’ wishes

Leading scientists are calling for a change in the law to help IVF patients donate unused embryos to biomedical research after a collapse in donations over the past 15 years.

The increasing commercialisation of IVF, overstretched NHS clinics and cumbersome paperwork are blamed for a 25-fold decrease in the number of donated embryos. Scientists described some patients going to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure their embryos could be used for research rather than discarded, with many private clinics failing to routinely offer donation as an option.

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Exposure to widely used insecticides decreases sperm concentration, study finds

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Study’s author says ‘we need to reduce exposure in order to ensure men who want to conceive are able to without interference’

Exposure to several widely used insecticides probably decreases sperm concentration and may have profound effects on male fertility, new US research finds.

The George Mason University paper analyzed five decades of peer-reviewed studies to determine if organophosphates and carbamate-based pesticides exposure correlated with decreased sperm concentration.

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One in 18 babies born in Australia are conceived via IVF, latest data shows

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The 102,157 cycles of IVF performed in 2021 was a 17% increase on 2020, with an average of two cycles for each woman

One in every 18 babies in Australia are now born through IVF, with a record high number of births recorded in the latest data.

The annual report from medical researchers at the University of New South Wales found a record 18,594 babies were born in Australia as a result of IVF treatment in 2021, with more than one in three women (37.1%) who completed their first cycle of IVF giving birth.

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People born by egg or sperm donor in UK will be able to find out biological origins

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Changes to anonymity law mean people can apply to discover donor’s name, date of birth and address

Dozens of young adults born via sperm or egg donation will be able to find out their biological origins in the coming weeks, with the first just days away from being able to apply to find out more information about their donor, health officials have said.

Changes to the donor anonymity law will mean that most donor-conceived young adults born after a certain date will be able to discover the people whose donations led to their conception.

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Woman ‘over the moon’ after sister donates womb in UK first

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Pioneering operation could allow dozens of infertile women a year to have babies

Surgeons have performed the first womb transplant on a woman in the UK, opening up the possibility for dozens of infertile women to have babies every year. The woman’s sister was the living donor of the womb.

The 34-year-old was “incredibly happy” and “over the moon” with the success of the nine-hour operation, according to the medical team behind the pioneering procedure. She now plans to have two children using IVF.

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‘Dramatic rise’ in number of women freezing eggs in UK

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Experts say restrictions on socialising during Covid crisis may have led more women to seek to preserve fertility

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of women freezing their eggs in the UK, while more single people are opting for IVF, figures show.

A report from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HEFA) found that more people than ever are undergoing procedures, with egg- and embryo-freezing the fastest-growing fertility treatments in Britain.

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Overhaul UK fertility law to keep up with advancements, expert says

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Exclusive: IVF in UK ‘is the most successful and the safest it has ever been’, says Tim Child

A leading fertility expert has said the law should be overhauled so that rapid advancements in reproductive science do not stall.

Prof Tim Child of the University of Oxford said IVF in the UK was “the most successful and the safest that it has ever been”, and noted that the chance of having a baby from a single embryo was rising and the likelihood of having multiple births dropping.

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Chinese woman appeals in battle for right to freeze her eggs

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Xu Zaozao’s case is widely followed in a country where women’s rights have become increasingly prominent

A single Chinese woman has begun an appeal in her legal battle for the right to freeze her eggs, a procedure only available in China to married couples.

Xu Zaozao took legal action in 2019 after a Beijing hospital refused to freeze her eggs but a Beijing court dismissed her case in July 2022.

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Dutch court orders sperm donor to stop after 550 children

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Nation’s guidelines say no donor should father more than 25 children in 12 families

Dutch judges have ordered a man suspected of fathering more than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating, in the latest fertility scandal to shock the Netherlands.

The man, identified in Dutch media only as Jonathan M, 41, was taken to court by a foundation protecting the rights of donor children and by the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm.

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Fertility apps collect unnecessary personal data and could sell it to third parties – study

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Apps in Australia gathered information about finances and housing which could be sold to advertisers, research by UNSW and Choice found

Four of Australia’s top 12 fertility apps are unnecessarily collecting highly sensitive information and have left the door open to selling the data to other companies, a study has found.

The study, conducted jointly by University of New South Wales law researcher Dr Katharine Kemp and consumer group Choice assessed the privacy policies of the 12 most popular fertility apps in Australia, which help people track menstrual cycles, ovulation, potential fertile windows, and stages of pregnancy.

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Donor children could contact biological parents before 18 under new proposals

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Existing UK fertility law should be updated to regulate modern treatments, says HFEA

Children born via sperm or egg donation would not need to wait until adulthood to find out more about their biological parents, under proposed changes to the law in the UK.

At present, donor-conceived children cannot obtain information about their biological parents until they are 18. But the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said the law should be updated so this information can be made available after the birth of a child, should the donor choose.

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UK sperm donor with genetic condition banned from contacting children

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Judge says James MacDougall, 37, was not upfront about fragile-X syndrome and should not meet some of those he fathered

A man with an incurable genetic condition who advertised his sperm to lesbians on social media has been banned from contacting some of the children he fathered as a result.

A family court judge took the unusual step of naming James MacDougall after finding he “took advantage of these young women’s vulnerability and their strong desire to have children”.

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Global heating linked to early birth and damage to babies’ health, scientists find

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Exclusive: Studies show high temperatures and air pollution during pregnancy can cause lifelong health effects

The climate crisis is damaging the health of foetuses, babies and infants across the world, six new studies have found.

Scientists discovered increased heat was linked to fast weight gain in babies, which increases the risk of obesity in later life. Higher temperatures were also linked to premature birth, which can have lifelong health effects, and to increased hospital admissions of young children.

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Australia’s fertility rate falls to record low in 2020

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Registered births fell by 3.7% in 2020, with the total fertility rate at an all-time low of 1.58 babies per woman

Australia’s fertility rate continues to plummet, with registered births dropping below 300,000 for the first time in 14 years.

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed there were 294,369 registered births in 2020, a decrease of 3.7% from 2019. The previous year’s decline was 3%.

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California women gave birth to each other’s babies after IVF mix-up

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Couples to sue clinic after raising girls for months that were not theirs, says lawsuit, before babies were swapped back

Two California couples gave birth to each other’s babies after a mix-up at a fertility clinic and spent months raising children that were not theirs before swapping the infants, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles.

Daphna Cardinale said she and her husband, Alexander, had immediate suspicions that the girl she gave birth to in late 2019 was not theirs due to the child’s darker complexion.

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Baby it’s you: my fight to overcome infertility

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After years of trying, Martha Hayes chose to have a child using an egg donor. It raised many painful questions. But when Maggie finally arrived it turned out she’d brought all her love with her

It’s 7pm on a weeknight when my husband Chris and I open our laptops, pour two glasses of wine and start browsing through profiles of women in their 20s. Attractive, interesting, available women. It’s the spring of 2020, we’ve been living in Los Angeles for a year (having relocated from London for work) and a couple of times a week, this has become our little routine.

I get a good feeling about a pretty blonde yoga teacher, then worry that she’s only 5ft tall. I love the idea of someone who works for Nasa, but I’m put off by her distinctive nose. I am swayed by a sense of humour and spirit for adventure; snobby about hobbies, fussy about ailments and firmly rule out anyone who resembles a party-goer on spring break. It’s an uncomfortable, confronting process. Am I really this superficial or judgmental?

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‘I’m scared I’ve left it too late to have kids’: the men haunted by their biological clocks

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It’s certainly not just women who worry about ageing and procreation – and now men have begun speaking about their own deep anxieties

It was when Connor woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom that he started thinking about it. The 38-year-old civil servant from London got back into bed and couldn’t sleep: he was spiralling. “I thought: ‘Shit, I might not be able to have children. It actually might not happen,’” he says.

“It started with me thinking about how I’m looking to buy a house, and everything is happening too late in my life,” Connor says. “Then I started worrying about how long it would take me to save again to get married, after I buy the house. I was doing the maths on that – when will I be able to afford to be married, own a house and start having kids? Probably in my 40s. Then I started freaking out about what the quality of my sperm will be like by then. What if something’s wrong with the child? And then I thought, oh no, what if me and my girlfriend don’t work out? I’ll be in an even worse scenario in a few years.”

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