http://blogs.prideangel.com/post/2013/09/Delaying-your-first-baby-could-lead-to-age-related-infertility.aspx

Young women who decide to delay their first baby until their late-30s are running the risk of being left childless because of age-related infertility, scientists have warned. A woman’s fertility declines dramatically after the age of 35 and an increasing number of women are finding that they have to turn to IVF treatment to have any hope of becoming pregnant, experts said. “Things are really going downhill between the ages of 30 and 40....the best cure of all is for women to have their babies before this clock strikes twelve,” said Professor Mary Herbert, a reproductive biologist at Newcastle University. “They should think of family planning not just in the context of preventing pregnancy but also think of it in the context of having your babies at a time when you still have your reproductive fitness...I would be worried if my own daughter didn’t have a child at 35,” Professor Herbert said. The number of British women between the ages of 35 and 39 giving birth for the first time has increased from 6.8 per cent in 1986 to 17 per cent in 2008. This has been accompanied by significant increase in the number of women over 40 seeking fertility treatment, many of whom will ultimately fail to become pregnant, the experts said. Fertility specialists are increasingly concerned about the trend towards having children later in life because, although it can work for some women, it causes problems for many more because female fertility declines so rapidly after 35. “Family planning has got to include when you are going to have your children as well and what we are seeing over the years is an increase in the age of women seeking fertility treatment,” said Jane Stewart, a consultant in reproductive medicine at Newcastle University. “We cannot get away from the age-related decline in fertility and I think to put forward the idea of delaying having children is fine for some people but it’s not fine for everybody,” she said. “I don’t think women understand the risks they run when they reach the older ages....It’s better to think about it [in your 20s] and having that thought process inform all possibilities,” she told the British Science Festival in Newcastle. Women are born with a certain number of egg cells in their ovaries and these are gradually lost as they get older, Dr Stewart said. “Women at the age of menopause have effectively run out of eggs. We do run out of time,” she told the meeting. Article: 13th September 2013 www.independent.co.uk

Preston Pride - Saturday 28th September

Members and friends of the LGB&T community will this year return to the flagstones of Market Square, Preston, for the second annual Preston Pride! The celebration of the city’s diverse and unique LGB&T community will take place on Saturday 28 September and is set to be Bigger, Louder and Prouder than 2012’s hugely successful debut. The Flag Market, outside The Harris Museum, will see a variety of live music and entertainment fit for the whole family, with the official after-party being hosted by Hangout Harry at Rumes Bar and Nightclub, Church Street, Preston. Day time events kick off at 12pm and are free of charge, however there will be a small charge for after-party events, with tickets available to buy in advance. To get your tickets contact Andrew on 07751 711335, or via facebook.com/HangoutHarry. For further details and to stay up to date with all the latest news find Preston Pride on Facebook at facebook.com/prestonpride, or on Twitter @PrestonPrideUK Article: 11th September 2013 www.prestonpride.com

Children of gay parents in Russia hide family truths

Working in a St. Petersburg restaurant after high school, Kristina Kochetkova was prepared for long hours and rude customers. She didn’t expect her boss to goad her in front of her co-workers for having two mothers. “It felt incredibly uncomfortable,” Kochetkova said from Russia’s second-largest city, recalling how he interrupted a staff meeting to ask about her parents, staring as she blushed. The incident, which took place after President Vladimir Putin stoked international ire by signing a law banning the spread of so-called gay propaganda, helped her decide she wouldn’t talk about her family as she starts college this week. The 17-year-old grew up knowing her parents were unusual. Now she worries they might be considered criminals. “Technically, my mothers are breaking the law by propagating their relationship to me,” Kochetkova said in a telephone interview. “It’s sad and incredibly unfair.” As the school year starts, same-sex parents are grappling with how honest to be with teachers and classmates. The law Putin signed June 30 puts gays and lesbians with children at particular risk, said human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group. “It’s a cruel measure against those children,” she said. “Their parents are scared and teaching them to hide and lie.” Read more... Article: 3rd September 2013 www.bloomberg.com

Pregnant women in Australia warned against drinking any alcohol

Health Minister Jillian Skinner has instructed pregnant women to have "zero tolerance" or risk the health of their unborn child. Her blunt warning comes as academics continue to investigate the effects of low-range drinking during pregnancy. A recent British study found the children of mothers who drank moderately - between three to seven glasses of alcohol per week - had better balance at the age of 10. Ms Skinner said the mixed messages about drinking had created a dilemma for many pregnant women. "A zero tolerance of alcohol during pregnancy gives your baby the best possible start in life," she said. However, Dr Delyse Hutchinson from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said the adverse impacts of low-level drinking was still unclear. Dr Hutchinson is leading the first large-scale Australian study into substance abuse among pregnant women, examining the effects of both alcohol and drugs on 2000 families during the prenatal period on infant development and family functioning. "We know that a fairly large proportion of women do drink during pregnancy - between a third and half do drink during pregnancy but most drink at very low levels," she said. "We know that heavy drinking during pregnancy has significant effects on the broad physical health and development of infants, including lower intellectual functioning. "However, there is not a lot of research on the impact of low levels of drinking and this is one of the aims of our study." NSW Kids and Families, a branch of NSW Health, is leading the push to urge women to abstain from drinking during pregnancy. Its senior clinical adviser for obstetrics, Dr Michael Nicholl, said the latest health data showed 47 per cent of pregnant women consumed alcohol with 20 per cent continuing to drink after learning they were expecting. "Pregnant women should understand that when you drink alcohol, so does your baby," he said. "It's just not worth the risk." The NSW government campaign, which coincides with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Day on Tuesday, is set to reignite the debate over how much is too much among expectant mums. Ms Skinner said: "As Health Minister, I feel sure that if NSW Kids and Families - which harnesses the best data and clinical minds - concludes a zero tolerance approach is best, then it is best." University of Western Sydney Midwifery Professor Hannah Dahlen said there had been an increased incidence in babies being born with Foetal Alcohlol Syndrome, especially among middle-class women. "We've seen some babies born with foetal alcohol syndrome to women who only had one or two drinks in a week," she said. "Babies go through such rapid development the whole way through birth, so it's not about just being careful in the first eight weeks - the brain develops through the whole of the pregnancy. "The message is to not drink at all because we just don't know a safe level of drinking." Article: www.dailytelegraph.com.au

Boost your fertility | Five ways to get pregnant

1. Gluten-Free Diet Cut out the bread! or change to Gluten-free. Many women have sensitivity to gluten, which can lead to infertility in women. Findings published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, found that celiac patients — people who have a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and disrupts the absorption of nutrients from food — who did not adhere to a gluten-free diet showed signs of "delayed menarche, secondary amenorrhea, a higher percentage of spontaneous abortions, anemia and hypoalbuminemia." However, celiac patients who did follow a gluten-free diet had normal pregnancies. Screening for Celiac disease/gluten sensitivity is advisable for infertile couples. 2. Get tested for an STI or infection A sexually transmitted infection (STI) or any other infection that is undiagnosed can affect a woman's ability to conceive. Testing is easy and affordable! 3. Take folic acid Women who have a genetic mutation that does not allow them to convert folic acid into its usable form, 5MTHF, are susceptible to infertility. Not only does this genetic mutation increase women's risk of infertility, but may also lead to miscarriage. For women trying to conceive, taking folic acid in the form of 5MTHF is highly important to increase odds of pregnancy. 4. Exercise One study showed that three days of fitness a week for 30 minutes can increase ovulation more than a low-calorie diet in women with PCOS. The form of exercise does not have to be intense but it must be consistently done in order to be effective. 5. Keep stress levels under control Cortisol, the stress hormone, is one of the biggest factors that contribute to hormonal imbalance. For a woman to conceive, her hormones must be in balance, so when her stress levels are too high, especially chronically, she will have a difficult time getting pregnant . Cortisol throws off all of the hormones because it places the body in a flight or fight state so that the other hormones do not have a chance to do their own jobs. Focus on your body and find a place to sit at peace and take deep breaths to naturally relieve the tension and stress levels in your body. Article: 5th September 2013 www.prideangel.com

http://blogs.prideangel.com/post/2013/09/A-case-for-cautious-commercial-surrogacy-in-Australia.aspx

In the last 30 years, we have seen 26 public inquiries into surrogacy in Australia. In recent years all states and territories have liberalised their laws to allow for unpaid surrogacy to occur with the assistance of licensed fertility providers, and to provide for intended parents to acquire legal status. But our system is still not working. In 2010-11 there were just 16 recorded surrogacy births within Australia, while 394 babies were born in India to Australian citizens – the majority of them almost certainly via commercial surrogacy. We need to make big changes to allow surrogacy to be more accessible at home, rather than exporting our fertility needs to other countries. The fundamental principles of fairness and safety require the informed and continuing consent of all participants in surrogacy, especially of the birth mother. When most surrogacy involving Australians is taking place offshore, it's plainly not accessible and also may not be safe, or not as safe as it would be onshore. Nor, where poorer countries are the providers, is it necessarily fair. Despite remarkably little regulation in the United States, surrogacy agencies and clinics have adopted a fairly common set of practices and standards, including psychological screening, counselling and support services. Research consistently shows that US surrogates are not impoverished or motivated by financial concerns, and are largely satisfied with their experience. In contrast, Australian women are expected to take surrogacy on as altruistic act and can only be paid a very limited amount for documented expenses. This drives people to evade the system, masking unlawful payments onshore, or going offshore to India and Thailand, resulting in reduced or zero access to professional support services and ethical safeguards. The more work I do on assisted reproduction, the more I see that professional support services are an important part of informed consent and the decision-making processes of parents. In the rare instance when things go do go wrong, such as in the Re Evelyn case in 1998, it usually involves informal arrangements in which none of the parties had any screening, counselling, or legal advice before the arrangement, nor any support services during or after it. Ideally, governments should provide screening, matching and counselling services, but if, as is currently the case, they don’t, it may be better to have commercial providers taking on this role rather than no one at all. A major argument against payment to surrogates is that it may act as undue influence that impairs informed consent. This is an important consideration. Surrogacy works when a woman voluntarily undertakes a pregnancy and is happy to relinquish a baby she does not regard as her own. If she has agreed only because of money and not because she regards that baby as someone else’s, everything falls apart. But in addition to guarding against payments that are too high, we should be asking whether surrogates are paid too little. Women who undertake pregnancies for others in surrogacy arrangements are performing labour (in both senses) and they are undertaking risks. Paying nothing does not protect or value this role. In Australia, altruistic surrogacy undertaken through licensed fertility services means that doctors, nurses, social workers, counsellors, scientists, technicians, storage facilities, receptionists, cleaners and delivery people are all paid. So are shareholders. Only the birth mother is not. There are a range of ways that surrogates could be paid within a regime of fair compensation that still guarded against improper inducement. In the UK the fertility regulator recently set a flat compensation payment of £750 ($1,100) per cycle for egg donors in recognition of the pain and risks they undertake. Payments of £15,000 are also regularly accepted by courts in the UK as reasonable compensation for surrogates, although there is no set guideline. Setting a clear minimum (representing a labour based contribution or compensation for risk and burden) would provide certainty if accompanied by proper screening protocols and regulation to guard against unfair inducement. There are important concerns about commercial surrogacy practices that go beyond the question of how much money is paid and go to who is paid for what. Problematic practices in surrogacy common in both developed and developing economies include high multiple birth rates (which are dangerous to babies and surrogate); enforceable contracts (which can prevent surrogates from having control over their pregnancy, and which compel relinquishment after birth), and the widespread use of anonymous egg donors. None of these are mandated by commercial markets, but they are strongly associated with them. An Australian system of compensated surrogacy could avoid such risks. We would continue to centre the informed and continuing consent of the birth mother through important safeguards such as ensuing that she has full control of pregnancy care and decisions, and that consensual relinquishment of the baby and her parental status occurs only after the birth. We already have very high clinical and ethical standards operating in tandem with government regulation to prevent multiple embryo transfer and to record donor identity. Commercial surrogacy could be contained within the existing successful framework of health regulation in Australia rather than distorting clinical and legal practice, as it has arguably done in other countries with far less regulation. This doesn’t mean copying commercial markets – it means learning from them. An Australian system which allowed for advertising, professional intermediaries and payment, if carefully regulated, would be safer and fairer than the now widespread practice of Australians travelling overseas for surrogacy. Article: 3rd September 2013 www.theguardian.com

Eat raspberries to boost male fertility says nutritionist

The news has recently highlighted that Raspberries may improve fertility, because they high levels of Vitamin C, a key nutrient in male fertility, and magnesium, which helps produce testosterone. They are also thought to contain 10 times more antioxidant activity than tomatoes, and are key to protecting sperm. It is also believed that after conception antioxidants continue to protect the embryo and may decrease the risk of miscarriage. Raspberries provide essential nutrients that are known to enhance fertility in men and women Juliet Wilson, a leading fertility nutritionist, said that one portion of raspberries provided the same amount of Vitamin C as eating 173 grapes. She said: “Raspberries provide essential nutrients that are known to enhance fertility in men and women.” It is also important to have a healthy balanced diet containing many different fruits and vegetables, which can help boost fertility, such as mangos, lemons, garlic, nuts and green leafy vegetables. Along with eating meat, fish, potatoes and eggs. Article: 1st September 2013 www.prideangel.com Read more about diet and natural fertility at www.prideangel.com