Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Optimising older ova...

Ova, but not the ones for eating...for that you should read an earlier post on owsblog that deals with the delicious and nutritious wonder that is the egg. This title refers to a new egg-freezing technique; one that according to scientists "could give women a better chance of having a baby when they are older". We know that sperm can be successfully frozen because is the simplest cell in the body; it is easy to collect (from those simple organic containers...of which I am one), thawed, and used in fertility treatment...BUT...the human egg is the most complex cell and naturally is produced within the complicated organic containers – women, and they only produce one egg per ‘cycle’. Basically, the new technique will make it possible to achieve good rates of success with 10-20 frozen-thawed eggs (let’s say a round dozen) whereas before women would need to have hundreds of eggs frozen to ensure a reasonable chance of producing a child....

This new research coincides with the first study to show that IVF single embryo transfer is just as successful as double transfer in older women and apparently safer. It also coincides with this news report: PRAGUE (Reuters) June 21 2006, "More than 3 million babies have been born following fertility treatment since the birth of the first IVF child nearly three decades ago,..."

All this seems overly concerned with women who can’t conceive, or women who want babies later in life when perhaps their body clock is starting to suggest they shouldn’t, is this right do you think? ...It surprised me to learn that an estimated one in seven couples has difficulty conceiving, a statistic that sounds incredible even though I know fertility can be affected in both men and women. Sometimes, the exact cause is never established; in the UK around one baby in 80 is born as a result of IVF treatment.

"Stress really can be a cause of infertility, in men and in women, and it can be managed," Berga [Professor Sarah Berga]
said at a fertility conference. "But by managing it you improve your fertility."

To counteract all the bad press that some of the multiple births that have occurred using IVF treatment paid for by the taxpayer,
UK researchers have calculated that each child will contribute £147,000 in taxes and insurance to the UK economy compared to £13,000 that it costs to create a baby in the first place; this is why it is argued that the NHS should fund, in part, IVF treatment – funding 3 cycles would "result in 10,000 more IVF babies over two to three years."

Also from Reuters today: "A vasectomy can be reversed and men have fathered children afterwards. But Professor Nares Sukcharoen, of the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, said men who have had a reversal may have an increased risk of damaged sperm.

In a small study of men who had a vasectomy reversal, Sukcharoen and his team found a higher number of chromosome abnormalities in sperm than in men who had not had the surgery.

"The
conclusion of the study is that the vasectomy seemed to be the cause of the abnormal sperm," he told a press conference at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

I have considered freezing my sperm, a friend had the snip and 3 months later they had a car crash and their baby son died – I was horrified and convinced myself it was a good enough reason not to get 'done': this was several years ago when a ‘snipping’ was very much under discussion and a bit silly really because the guy in question had the op reversed and now they have another child; also I considered donating sperm as I seemed quite fertile or at least had a few active little tadpoles that seemed very able to attain their role in life but never got round to that either (!!!) then, in April 2005, the law surrounding
donating sperm, eggs or embryos
was changed and those donating nowadays cannot remain anonymous...ah well, all the practicing I did was enjoyable.

S.O.

12 comments:

Span Ows said...

Ah, my old friend Mr. Replica Watch! How long since we last spoke!

Lucy...you know what this could mean...we'll see if I get any more. I think this may be a one-off because of the number of visits this week (half of which were me republishing and fiddling about but all the activity 'attracts more surfers'.

Regular readers please note...I am SOOOOOoooooo fucking chuffed that all my fiddling finally worked! (pheeeew!)

Lucy said...

This is serious Span !!
Oh go on then turn it on - I know you love those jkuhf's

Span Ows said...

hello Lucy..is it strange that I always like to find words/ meanings / anything from the word verification?

I see Gavin had a good one the other day but I can't remember on which blog it was.

I ALWAYS find a connection but I'm too shy to tell everyone because (a) it seems ridiculous and (b) it seems like I'm inventing it....my brain is just a bit too wierd because it always comes up with some connection/ series/ meaning/ whatever..

Anyway, i shan't turn it on for your sake...only if there are loads of spamming posts; I know Blogger has had a problem with them...and with hijacked blogs!!!...ah well

Gavin Corder said...

Way hey, your fiddling paid off! Your read the whole post +/- thingy is a triumph, i shall have to do the same at some point. Iwas toying with moving to Movable Type or Word Press as being a lot more flexibble though...so don't know if it's worth fiddling about...

Span Ows said...

Thanks Gavin...I am suitably humbled by your graceful congratulations :-)

Re Wordpress, there is a table on Online Journalism Review (ojr.org)...I'll try and find the link to it...the table, not the site...it's in one of their reviews and I looked last month but then couldn't find it. However most people say Blogger is the best palce to start but then they move on to take it to another level.

Wordpress wa sone of the best, also squarespace, and on e other who's name escapes me...but they have all different ways of editing etc...however many aren'nt totally free.

Gavin Corder said...

The thing with Word Press and Movable Type is that they software applications in their own right. so you download the programe and use it either on your own site hosted wherever or on one of their free ones. But the point is, if you have a site hosted properly you have access to other pages such as a frpnt end which doesn't have to be shoehorned into the blogging format whereby anythig you say is ephemeral.

Oi, I'm always gracious you fat tit!

Well done anyway, I'm proud of you! (Just remember who taught you mos of this shit!)

Span Ows said...

well I've added the typos in my post and yours and I've run out of fingers and toes! Doh!...the link I mentioned has all that techno sounding stuff an dmore...wordpress has 3 levels and teh pro one was the bee's knees with all the bells and whistles...

fat tit?..hmmmmmmm

P.S....very strangely I haven't recieved an email saying that you'd posted, usually with all posts I receive an email

Lucy said...

I sent an email to my husband last week at 10am, it arrived in his inbox at 4am the next day?!
Maybe gavins post mail is winging its way through the ether, snail mail style...

Span Ows said...

I wonder if it's lost?...yours is here so no probs....you're up bright and early, maybe trying to catch the worm... in all it's morning glory...
;-)...or did you post it last night!!!

Gavin Corder said...

Alright you're not really a fat tit, that was just me being gracious. I've had emails disappear into the ether for days before now. There's no reason to suppose the damn things are instant.

The early bird may well get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese...

Span Ows said...

...the second mouse gets the cheese but the third world goes hungry...

boom boom!

Anonymous said...

This comment has nothing to do with this article, and seems to be a spill over from the newsgroup. I actually found it by accident on Google.
I�m not pushing vasectomy. microsurgical vasectomy reversal has always had a news section, and we have always posted new research. The purpose of this blog is to post the news AND ALLOW DISCUSSION, and to post and discuss new research.