Hormone levels may give us the key to when our fertile years will end

The age-specific blood levels of the Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) can predict when women will reach menopause. This makes family planning easier, say fertility researchers from the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. Their findings were published online May 26 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Generally, women enter menopause between the age of forty and sixty. A woman's fertility, however, ends ten years prior to this and in the most unfavorable circumstances occurs around the age of thirty. With regard to family planning and a career, it is extremely valuable for women to know the expected length of their fertility.

Predicting menopause
The study included 257 healthy women who were monitored for as long as eleven years. The Dutch researchers linked AMH levels to the point when the women entered menopause and based on these data constructed a model to predict the menopausal age. Using age and AMH, the age range in which menopause will occur can be individually predicted.

For example, the predicted median age at menopause of a 30 year old woman with an AMH concentration close to 0.15 ng/ml will be 48.8 years. On the other hand, the predicted median age at menopause of a 30 year old woman with an AMH concentration close to 4.38 ng/ml will be 55.3 years. These findings may only be translated into clinical practice after a thorough assay standardisation.

Postpone having children
The research was conducted under the leadership of gynecologists Professor Frank Broekmans and Professor Bart Fauser. "Women often postpone having children until their career has been well established. However they may find that it is difficult to get pregnant at this time. It could therefore be very useful for women to know beforehand up to which age they remain fertile. As far as we know, we are the first researchers worldwide to succeed in making long term predictions for individual women," the gynecologists say.

This knowledge will enable women who are predicted to become infertile at an early age to choose the option of having their eggs frozen. This means that they will still be able to have children if it turns out that they can no longer get pregnant spontaneously. University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, offers people the possibility of having eggs frozen and stored in a human egg bank.

Article: 29th May 2011 www.sciencedaily.com

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Pink Parenting Magazine to launch for the gay and lesbian community

Welcome to Europe’s first Premier Same Sex Parenting Magazine for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) community.
In these modern times more gay people are becoming parents than ever before as many in the LGBT community seek to fulfil their dreams of having a family especially with so many countries around the globe now making same sex marriage available. Pink Parenting is here to do just that. Bringing you everything you need to start a family from surrogacy options, adoption and the legal aspects of being a modern family to what’s the best stroller out there on the market.

A SNEAK PEAK INTO THE AUDIENCE: While we are feverishly working on getting the statistics for the UK & Europe, our research has shown that:
According to the 2000 Census - SAME-SEX COUPLES IN THE UNITED STATES
• Census 2000 identified same-sex couples in every state and virtually every county in the United States.
• Individuals living in same-sex couples not only live throughout the country, but share all of the other attributes of the U.S.'s population.
• Individuals in same-sex couples contribute to the economy: 71% of them are employed compared with 65% of individuals in married couples.
• 65% of SS couples one partner is a homeowner. By comparison, one or both partners are homeowners in 43% of different-sex unmarried couples.
• More than 39% of same-sex couples in the United States aged 22-55 are raising children.


Unlike many other gay magazines, our demographic is LGBT couples between the age of 30 to 45 that are more interested in modern day life and having a family and growing out of the gay club scene. We are also working with many LGBT organizations to promote and distribute the magazine. The magazine is also available through the www.Pink-Parenting.com website and will soon be available via www.prideangel.com

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Sperm donor legal rights in Australia

PARENTING plans developed before a child is born should not be legally enforceable and sperm donors should not have an automatic legal right to be on a birth certificate, the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby says.
''The paramount consideration when providing parentage/parenting orders is to protect the best interests of the child, not the expectations or interests of parents,'' a senior policy adviser at the group, Senthorun Raj, said.

''[However], there needs to be greater consideration on whether it is appropriate to broaden the scope of parenting plans, to permit greater recognition of donor fathers who wish to have an ongoing parenting role.''

His comments come after the Herald revealed yesterday the first case in NSW in which a lesbian former partner of a woman is taking the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages and a sperm donor to court to force the removal of his name from a child's birth certificate despite him seeing the child fortnightly for the past nine years.

The case, before the NSW District Court today, highlights the inadequacy of laws dealing with multi-parent families.

Five years ago, the NSW Law Reform Commission recommended that the legal status of known sperm donors be reviewed to help stop court battles over access to children after they are born.

Sperm donors do not have automatic legal parenting status. In 2008 that right was given to the partners of lesbian mothers who conceived using a sperm donor.

The commission's 2006 recommendation said policymakers should consider whether to enable same-sex families to register parenting plans, the recognition of multiple legal parents and whether to enable donors to be named on a birth certificate, without attaching legal parental status to that act.

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Mobile phone use, may lower male fertility

Men who are planning to have children one day may want to reduce how long they spend chatting on their mobile phones. Researchers from Queen's University, Canada, found that mobile use may lower sperm quality and lead to a decrease in fertility. The team found that electromagnetic waves (EMW) transmitted by handsets has a complex relationship with male hormones. Lead researcher, Dr Rany Shamoul, said: 'Our findings were a little bit puzzling.
'We were expecting to find different results, but the results we did find suggest that there could be some intriguing mechanisms at work.' The research team discovered that men who reported cell phone use had higher levels of circulating testosterone but they also had lower levels of luteinizing hormone (LH).

LH is an important reproductive hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain. The researchers think that electromagnetic waves emitted by cell phones may have a dual action on male hormone levels and fertility. EMW may increase the number of cells in the testes that produce testosterone, however it could also lower the levels of LH excreted by the pituitary gland.

This may block the conversion of this basic type of testosterone to the more active, potent form of testosterone associated with sperm production and fertility. Dr Shamloul concluded more in-depth research is needed to determine the exact ways in which EMW affects male fertility. The research comes just two months after mobile phone users in the UK were advised by the Government to text or use hands free kits rather than make calls.

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Donor Unknown: Adventures in the Sperm Trade

Donor Unknown... a film about identity, genetic inheritance and the family of the future
JoEllen Marsh's life began 22 years ago in a pornography-lined, "collection" cubicle at the Los Angeles headquarters of California Cryobank, a private semen cryopreservation organisation. From there, the sample produced by her biological father, donor 150, was sent to Pennsylvania, where nine months later JoEllen was born to her biological mother, Lucinda Marsh.

Twenty years later, a remarkably accepting JoEllen is calmly recounting the story of how her innate desire to connect with her extended donor family has evolved into the subject of an absorbing documentary. Donor Unknown: Adventures in the Sperm Trade, is a compelling film that raises intriguing questions about nature versus nurture, modern medicine's evolving ethics and the shifting composition of contemporary families.

"Even when I was very young," says JoEllen, "I realised that my family wasn't like other families." Informed by her lesbian mothers from an early age that "a kind man they didn't know" had helped her to be born, the concept of a traditional father – or rather the lack of one – simply never arose.

"My upbringing seemed completely normal to me, as it was all I knew," says JoEllen, who grew up with a younger sister, Mollie, 16, born to the same mother but conceived from a different sperm donor.

But JoEllen had a lot of questions that couldn't be answered. "The way I moved was not like the rest of my family. And if you don't know who your father is, you wonder about the strangest things – what are his ears like? What is his forehead like? Why do I have these interests when no one else in my family does?"

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Canadian court rules to change anonymity law for donor conceived in B.C.

A Canadian court in B.C. has struck down part of the province’s adoption act as unconstitutional, following a legal challenge by a woman conceived through artificial insemination who wanted to learn more about her anonymous, biological father.
Olivia Pratten sought to have B.C.’s Adoption Act declared unconstitutional because it allows adopted children to obtain records about their biological parents, an option that is not available to people conceived from donated eggs or sperm.

In a ruling released Thursday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair agreed sections of the act violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justice Adair said excluding donor offspring from the benefits and protections of the act creates a distinction between donor offspring and adoptees, two groups who she said can experience similar struggles.

“I’m really happy. It’s the end of donor anonymity in B.C. It’s the first time this has happened in North America. It’s a landmark decision and it’s about time,” Ms. Pratten said in a phone interview.

Justice Adair suspended her ruling for 15 months to give the province time to re-craft the legislation.

Ms. Pratten, 29, was conceived through sperm donation and her parents supported her desire to learn more about her biological father. Ms. Pratten’s mother learned her husband was infertile from complications of bladder surgery, and a Vancouver doctor used artificial insemination to impregnate her.

When the mother returned to the doctor asking for information about the donor, the doctor refused to hand it over. He later said it had been destroyed after the requisite six years. Ms. Pratten and her mother filed affidavits saying they didn’t believe him. In Thursday’s ruling, the judge disagreed, saying she believed the records had been destroyed.

The B.C. government had argued that while Ms. Pratten’s desire to learn more about her biological father was understandable, her constitutional rights had not been violated.

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IVF clinics in London are overcharging according to Lord Winston

IVF clinics in London are "cashing in" by overcharging patients who want to store frozen embryos, according to a top fertility doctor.
Clinics are advised to use one embryo at a time to reduce the health risks connected to multiple births, but couples desperate to conceive often choose to freeze embryos for future use. Lord Robert Winston, the fertility treatment pioneer, said that some clinics were taking advantage of these "one at a time" regulations. He revealed that one clinic charged £915 for embryo freezing plus £325 for storage in liquid nitrogen which "costs a few pence a litre".

Speaking in a debate in Parliament on the future of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Professor Winston said:

"Embryo freezing will be increasingly required if we are to limit the number of pregnancies that result in multiple births by transferring just one embryo each time." The Labour peer added: "One of the key issues which the HFEA has not dealt with is the high cost of IVF treatment. In my view, it is a scandal.

"There are clinics that treat patients for around £3,400 a cycle. It is only when you look at their websites that you see that they are charging up to £1,100 to £3,200 for drugs that should be obtained on contracts at around £500 to £700 per cycle." Lord Winston said IVF was a "highly privileged treatment" because "hard-pressed" NHS trusts cannot afford to offer the three free cycles of IVF recommended.

Many clinics only offer single embryo transfers since the new HFEA issued advice on limiting multiple births three years ago. Figures published last week reveal multiple pregnancies fell to 22 per cent last year from 26.7 per cent in 2008. Lord Winston also said that some clinics are offering treatments which are not backed by scientific evidence. These include immune therapy which costs up to £3,000 and is based on the belief that a woman's immune system may reject a pregnancy and lead to miscarriage


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Natalie Gamble has a new home

Pride Angel is delighted to announce that our leading fertility and parenting lawyer Natalie Gamble has now moved premises.

Their new home is nestled within beautiful offices overlooking the New Forest with fabulous countryside around them, but close to the mainline station at Salisbury. Previously known as Gamble&Ghevaert, they have now changed their name to Natalie Gamble Associates and are now a team of five looking for a further lawyer.

Natalie Gamble will continue to be at the forefront of pioneering fertility work with families who need help unraveling the law in the UK within a global context. They are immensely proud of their track record which now stands at over 10 years of grappling with the law and making changes to help families get the right structures in place to secure their family as a unit.

Visit Natalie Gamble Associates website, now at www.nataliegambleassociates.com or contact them for further information.

Read more about fertility law at www.prideangel.com

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Egg donor needed for woman who went through the menopause age 12

Woman who went through menopause aged 12 pleads for egg donor after seven-year struggle to have baby

A childless woman has made a desperate plea for egg donors after she went through the menopause - at the age of 12. Sarah Johnson, 27, experienced a change in her fertility decades earlier than usual after she was born with a rare medical condition meaning she cannot conceive naturally. The nursery nurse and her husband Vincent, 32, have tried for the last seven years to conceive without success.

They turned to egg donation as their last hope of having a baby but a national shortage of donors has hampered their attempts Last year, an anonymous woman came forward and donated eggs but at the 11th hour the process failed - and their hopes were dashed.

Sarah, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, said: 'It's devastating, heartbreaking and a complete rollercoaster. 'I've always been around children and have longed to be a mother for so long so it was really difficult when that dream was taken away.

'This is our last chance - we need more women to come forward to donate their eggs otherwise it won't work. We are so desperate for a baby of our own. ' It's not just about us as a couple - we want to help other people in the same position.'

The couple's fertility treatment, at St Mary's in Manchester, is being funded by the NHS. Sarah, who works at a nursery at Manchester Airport, and Vincent, an IT administrator, have one more attempt at egg donation on the NHS and if it fails say they would consider adoption.

Sarah said she was stunned when doctors told her she had a rare genetic disorder - Turner Mosaic Syndrome. The condition had caused her to have a premature menopause, meaning she would be unable to get pregnant naturally. She said: 'I can't explain how I felt - it was just the worst feeling but egg donation offers us hope. It didn't work out last time but we haven't lost hope and want to give it another go.'
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Are more women losing their babies in late pregnancy?

Sadly, Kelly Brook has lost her baby five months into her pregnancy. The model and actress is not the only celebrity to have suffered the trauma of a late miscarriage in recent months. In February, Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden, 40, lost a baby two months before she was due to give birth. She had also suffered a miscarriage the previous year. Last November, 25-year-old singer Lily Allen faced the same tragedy six months into her pregnancy. In 2008, she had a miscarriage when she was four months pregnant.

So is the number of miscarriages among British women rising? Or are we simply more aware of the problem because high-profile celebrities have courageously told of their terrible loss? Recent research published in medical journal The Lancet shows Britain has one of the worst records for stillbirth, ranking 33 out of 35 high-income countries. Eleven babies are stillborn every day in Britain.

Losing a baby after 24 weeks of pregnancy - when the baby could survive in an incubator - is classed as a stillbirth. Before that, it is a miscarriage. Every day, 290 British women experience a miscarriage. Professor Lesley Regan, head of the department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at St Mary’s Hospital, London, says there has been an increase in the number of reported miscarriages.

‘This is partly because the issue of miscarriage has become more visible,’ she says. ‘In my mother’s generation, you didn’t talk about that sort of thing. ‘Also, in the past, women often didn’t know they were pregnant early on because you could take a pregnancy test only in hospital. This means many early miscarriages went unnoticed.’

The advent of home pregnancy tests and a more open society have seen a huge rise in the number of reported miscarriages. However, it is also likely that the actual number of miscarriages has increased. This is largely because of the increase in the number of women having babies later in life.

A woman aged 30 has a 12 per cent risk of miscarriage. But in her early 40s, that rises to 41 per cent. Over the age of 45, it shoots up to 75 per cent. ‘Miscarriage rises with maternal age - and more women are having babies later,’ says Prof Regan. ‘Early miscarriages (before 13 weeks) are often down to chromosomal abnormalities in the embryo. They are more likely to be a one-off.’

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Mild IVF works, so why aren't more women offered this treatment?

Tracy Sant was told she couldn't have children, but a 'mild' fertility treatment worked. Why aren't more women offered this option?

For someone who was told she'd never have her own biological children, 40-year-old Tracy Sant, who has an 18-month-old daughter and is now expecting a son, is doing well.

Like many other women, the former RAF pilot was turned away from fertility clinics as a matter of course because her levels of Follicular Stimulating Hormone (FSH) were considered too high.

"A well-known clinic in Wimpole Street turned me down because my FSH was 12," Sant says. "Four months later we went to another fertility centre in Cambridge. By then my FSH levels had risen to 22.

"The consultant told me this meant I was approaching the menopause and wouldn't be able to have a child naturally. Egg donation, he said, would be my only option. Well, we weren't ready to hear that and were absolutely devastated."

FSH is linked to egg quality and quantity. When levels exceed 10 to 15, it is widely believed a woman's eggs aren't good enough quality for fertilisation. There is another hitch. The IVF industry relies heavily on fertility drugs to guarantee success rates. And patients such as Sant, who have high FSH and are medically known as "poor responders", do not respond well to fertility drugs.

Yet there is now more evidence than ever to show that mild or natural-cycle IVF – which uses a woman's natural cycle and minimal or no ovary-stimulating drugs – does work for these women.

Several studies have shown this gentle approach leads to better-quality eggs and improved rates of implantation in the womb lining, exactly what women need if egg numbers and quality are hanging in the balance.

The outcome is significant. In a study at the Centre of Assisted Reproduction in Rome on "poor responders" with high FSH levels, natural-cycle IVF led to a pregnancy rate of 18 per cent each cycle in women under 35. In those aged 35 to 40, pregnancies were achieved at a rate of 11.7 per cent per cycle.

Dr Geeta Nargund, medical director of Create Health Clinic and president of the International Society for Mild Approaches in Assisted Reproduction (ISMAAR), says that might not seem like a high percentage. But it is significant when the only other option might be egg donation, she says.

"Although natural-cycle IVF success rates are lower than conventional stimulated IVF in young women with normal egg reserve, it can be equally or even more successful in older women who have high FSH and low-egg reserve," Dr Nargund says. "Also, the treatment does not upset the body's hormones, so you can fit around twice the number of treatments into the same time period."

Vitally for women with low egg reserves, mild IVF is known to lead to fewer genetic abnormalities in developing embryos. One study in Human Reproduction that compared embryo quality had to be abandoned on ethical grounds when researchers discovered that standard IVF led to almost double the rate of genetic abnormalities in embryos than those produced using low-dose IVF. Another study, also in Human Reproduction, found that low-dose IVF had double the rate of embryo implantation in the womb lining, compared with standard IVF, which required twice the number of embryos to get the same results.

"Forcing eggs to mature using high-dose medication in women with low egg reserve may not be in the best interests of egg quality," Dr Nargund says. "Instead, evidence suggests it is best to work with nature where the egg is selected naturally and matures in its own time."

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American Fertility Association produce Educational Fertility Resource

The American Fertility Association (The AFA) is pleased to announce the completion of a yearlong fertility educational series which was funded by Attain Fertility® Centers. The AFA is a national non-profit family building organization that provides educational resources and support to men and women, especially those trying to conceive. Attain Fertility is the nation's largest network of fertility centers and provider of the Attain® IVF financial program.

The AFA and Attain Fertility partnered together with the goal of providing a one-of-the-kind educational opportunity for consumers and patients available in the comfort of their own homes. The AFA created a series of 20 Fact Sheets and High Definition Videos to add to its already robust online library.

The videos feature fertility specialists within the Attain Fertility network, and cover topics ranging from the clinical aspect of the disease state, such as endometriosis and premature ovarian failure, as well as the personal side of a fertility patient's journey, including stopping infertility treatments and moving on to other options. Each Fact Sheet provides comprehensive information, and is accompanied by a brief HD video, featuring experts presenting an overview of the topic. The videos have already been viewed over 10,000 times on Attain Fertility's YouTube channel alone.

"Our partnership with Attain Fertility is one that we value greatly," says Ken Mosesian, Executive Director of The AFA. "This project has both short-term and long-term impact, with the Fact Sheets and HD Videos becoming some of the most viewed pages on our website." Mosesian continues, "Because of the quality of each piece, the subject matter, and the in-depth bibliographies that they feature, they will be a resource for patients for years to come."

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