October 27, 2010
Filed under: Infertility — Alan @ 4:01 am
A recent study has disclosed that a woman’s capacity to conceive during middle age could be affected by blood type. A U.S. study involving around 600 women determined that a large percentage of the women having type “O” blood possessed chemical indicators of low egg production. No reason for such a correlation could be determined.
All women have a set number of eggs, which is referred to as an ovarian reserve. This number diminishes as a woman ages. Age is still the number one factor in infertility and diminishing of the egg reserve. The study, however, found a high presence of the chemical indicator FSH in woman whose ovarian reserve was diminishing.
There is no certainty, based on the study, whether the increased presence of FSH is a cause or an effect. The study was interesting because it also concluded that the FSH level was lower in women with an “A” blood type. Again, it was not determined if this outcome was cause or effect.
The baseline reading of an individual woman’s FSH gives doctors an idea of whether or not her egg reserve is diminished. It is not known how this plays into the general population, because all of the test subjects were already undergoing fertility treatment.
This study will have to lead to many additional studies to first verify the conclusions, determine cause or effect, and see how the blood type and FSH are related, if at all, to women who are not undergoing fertility treatment.
Experts admit that while the results about blood type are interesting, they do not clearly present a correlation between FSH and blood type or infertility and blood type.
October 22, 2010
Filed under: Uncategorized — Alan @ 5:09 am
A recent study found that if you are born during October and November, you are more possibly going to suffer from some sort of food allergy by age four than if you were born in June or July. A Finnish study discovered that almost one in ten autumn babies had food allergies and only five in ten summer babies.
Autumn babies were more predisposed to milk and egg allergies by a third than summer babies. Some experts believe the results prove the condition is because of early foetal exposure to pollen.
It seems that babies who have their earliest development stages during the pollen season have a greater risk of developing all sorts of allergies than babies who do not. Why pollen exposure would trigger food allergies is absolutely unknown, although it seems to make common sense that it might trigger reactions to pollen, grass, leaves, etc.
Experts stress that while the results of the studies are intriguing, couples should not attempt timing their pregnancies to have babies with less allergic concerns. The relation to the season and environmental causes is just too controversial.
There are other studies that have been done in an attempt to correlate season of birth attributes with things such as ADHD and MS. Nothing definitive has ever been proven in these season to symptom correlations and it is highly likely that the allergy studies may go the same way.
Environment should always be a considered factor in any of these studies, say experts, and that factor has just not been taken fully enough into account in these allergy studies and many of the other season of birth studies.
October 16, 2010
Filed under: Uncategorized — Alan @ 1:08 am
After years of heart break, a woman from Birmingham was able to give birth to a healthy, strapping baby boy. Elizabeth Baker lost four babies, each only six weeks along, before the miracle of her 6lb, 11oz baby, Isaac.
Elizabeth was the beneficiary of groundbreaking research performed in order to discover if women who were given steroids during their first two weeks of pregnancy could be giving their children a fighting chance against killer cells by suppressing their immune system. The condition of killer cells in some women’s bodies causes the immune system to attack the embryo as if it were a foreign body, eventually killing it.
Elizabeth’s immune system was so overactive and filled with NK, killer, cells that it had to be suppressed almost to the point of nonexistence. Still, all she had to go through was well worth welcoming her son into the world, she and husband Jeremy agree.
The couple says that they were absolute wrecks right up to the moment of birth and even that didn’t go so well, as Isaac went into distress and had to be delivered by emergency caesarean.
Elizabeth was amid a group pf women involved in a clinical study and, although she cannot know whether she received a placebo or the steroid, the successful birth of Isaac leads her to believe that she was among the number given 20mg of Prednisolone every day.
The steroid is usually used to treat eczema and asthma. In this case it was used to reduce the amount of killer cells in women’s bodies. The process itself is very risky for the mother, as she must be extremely careful to avoid infection, to which she becomes highly susceptible.
Elizabeth will tell you; however, that she and Jeremy, and Isaac believe it was well worth taking the chance.
October 6, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 3:20 am
Robert Edwards, the British scientist who might arguably be called “the father of in-vitro fertilisation” has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in the category of physiology or medicine. The ceremony took place today, October 4, at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, where the Nobel Assembly presented the 10m Swedish kroner award for Edwards’s ground-breaking work in the field of IVF.
Born in Manchester in 1925, Robert Edwards studied biology and began his research on embryos in mice, first at the University of Wales in Bangor and later at Edinburgh University. His development of the IVF technique began in 1958 at the National Institute for Medical Research in London.
Later he partnered with an English gynaecologist and surgeon, Patrick Steptoe, who had made great advances in the procedure for removing eggs from ovaries. The two, along with colleagues, founded the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, the first in-vitro medical facility in the world.
In the late 1970’s, Leslie and John Brown came to the clinic, after nine years of failed attempts at ‘normal’ pregnancy. Edwards and Steptoe were successful in using their improved methods of IVF with one of Leslie’s eggs, removed and re-implanted after fertilization in the lab.
In 1978 the first “test tube baby” was delivered by caesarean section after a full-term pregnancy. The baby was named Louise, and when she was notified today about the Nobel award she sent her personal congratulations. Louise said, “Me and mum are so glad that one of the pioneers of IVF has been given the recognition he deserves.”
Edwards has said that he and Steptoe were deeply concerned with the couples who were desperate to have a child and couldn’t manage to do so, and that fuelled his determination to develop a viable technology to help them. Today, as many as two to three percent of births in some countries are the result of IVF.
October 2, 2010
Filed under: Baby health — Alan @ 1:51 am
One of the most important and effective preventive measures is the avoidance or reduction of the known risk factors by the parents. As preventive measures are:
smoke-free environment, i.e. no smoking in pregnancy and during the first year of the child’s life;
Room temperature 16 – 18°C;
Supine position for sleeping;
Solid, air permeable mattress;
Matching sleeping bags, no head covering and no extra blankets, sheepskins, pillows, bumpers, etc.
It is also recommended to leave children in the first year of life in their own room. About co-sleeping parents and children in a bed (so-called family bed or co-sleeping), there are however conflicting statements.
A recent study from Scotland showed that, infants who are younger than 11 weeks old, have an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome, when sharing a bed with parents.
According to other studies, sucking on pacifiers has a preventive effect. In countries like Britain and the Netherlands, the above preventive measures have been promoted on television with the result that the number of deaths could be reduced significantly.
In the Netherlands, the number of sudden infant death has from 1987 (0.91 per 1000 live births) to 2004 (0.09 per 1000 live births) decreased by a factor of 10, and the Netherlands have the lowest rate in the Western world.
In Germany, since 1991, the supine sleeping position has been recommended for the infant. Between 1991 and 2002, the number in Germany has decreased from 1,285 cases in 1991 to 367 cases in 2002 (reduced from 1.55 to 0.51 per 1000 live births), which is often attributed to the recommendation of the supine position and other preventive measures.
This means that from 1991 – 2002 approximately 6,300 babies in Germany have NOT died of sudden infant death, which would have previously died if the statistics were correct.
Several epidemiological studies could provide no evidence that the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome could be influenced by control measures. Consequently, the American Academy of Paediatrics also recommend that cardio-respiratory monitors are not prescribed for the prevention of sudden infant death syndrome.
