In The News
Latest Fertility, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting News
Is Coffee the New Health Food?
New research suggests drinking coffee that could lower your risk of developing diabetes, Parkinson's disease and colon cancer.
It's the latest of hundreds of studies suggesting that coffee may be something of a health food, especially in higher amounts.
Highest Numbers of Mothers Over 40 in Italy and Sardinia
Research has shown that more women aged over 40 are having children in Italy than in any other western industrialised nation.
More than 26,000 babies in Italy were born to mothers over 40 in 2005. This was 4.6% of the total, up from 3.9% in 2003 and 1.9% in 1990, according to a study by Francesco Billari, a demographics professor at Milan's Bocconi University.
He said that in 2003 Italy already topped the table for births by women over 40, ahead of the United States at 2.6%, France at 2.7% and Spain at 2.9%. "Exact comparisons have not been carried out for 2005 but a comparable study put the UK well behind at 3.4%," he said. "I believe Italy has comfortably maintained its lead."
The trend for late motherhood is catching on
More and more women choose to start their families later in life due to career and lifestyle choices. The trend for late motherhood is led by well-known figures such as Cherie Blair, Susan Sarandon and Madonna.
Former air stewardess Karen Loong-Thomas, 38, admits that she would not have been prepared for motherhood 10 years ago.
“I probably wouldn’t have been willing to give up my social life,” says Loong-Thomas, who now runs her own gym. Her erratic flying schedules and lifestyle then weren’t conducive to conceiving, and she admits she wasn’t interested in having kids earlier.
Material manager B.H. Lim, 40, who works for an agro-chemical company, just had her third child. “I got married late, and we waited before starting a family. Now that we’re older, we can plan for the children emotionally and financially,” says Lim.
Full Fat Diet Helps Increase Chances of Pregnancy
For a woman trying to conceive, the best prescription could be a knickerbocker glory. It might play havoc with her diet but the old-fashioned confection, made with cream and ice cream, could help her get pregnant, according to a study.
Researchers have found that women who drink whole milk and eat full-fat dairy products are more fertile than those who stick to low-fat products. The findings could help explain the growth of infertility in the West as fashion-conscious young women trying to eat healthily and stay slim have shunned full-fat dairy products such as whole milk.
Eating two or more servings of low-fat dairy products a day - which could include a portion of cottage cheese and a low-fat yoghurt - increased the risk of infertility due to lack of ovulation by 85 per cent, the researchers found. But women who ate at least one serving of high-fat dairy food a day cut their risk of infertility from this cause by 27 per cent.
Birthrate for Mothers Aged 35 to 49 at an All-Time High
Freezing technology, or cryopreservation, has been around for decades, with frozen sperm or frozen embryos--fertilized eggs--routinely used in in-vitro fertilization. But freezing fresh, unfertilized eggs is a developing trend in the field of fertility medicine, one that appeals to women who need to delay childbearing for medical reasons such as chemotherapy or radiation treatment or who simply choose to put it off until later in life.
Woman aged 67 Gives Birth to Twins
A 67-year-old Spanish women gave birth to twins in a Barcelona hospital on Saturday, after undergoing fertilisation in Latin America.
It is the woman's first birth and she is expected to spend a few days in the Sant Pau hospital recovering.
A spokesman for the hospital, which specialises in high-risk births, said that both the mother and her babies were doing well.
More Older Women Embarking on Motherhood without Partners
A growing generation of single career women are reaching their late 30s unmarried but still desperate to become mothers. Many are embarking on parenthood alone - and their quest will soon be made easier.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt wants the law changed to allow single women and lesbians to have fertility treatment without the need to prove there will be a father figure in the child's life.
Here, Ruth Yahel, a 41-year-old TV production executive, explains why she decided from the outset to be a lone parent, and why - in her opinion - they should not be vilified:
Briton Becomes New Mother at 62
A 62-year-old child psychiatrist, Patricia Rashbrook, has become the oldest woman in Britain to have a baby.
Patricia's husband, John Farrant, 60, reported that Patricia and their 6lb 10oz baby boy were doing well.
Woman to Become Oldest Mother at 62
A woman is set to become Britain's oldest mother at the age of 62 after treatment by a controversial Italian fertility doctor. Child psychiatrist Patricia Rashbrook, of East Sussex, flew to Rome last October for IVF by Severino Antinori, according to the Sun newspaper.
She is now reported to be seven months' pregnant with her third child.
In a joint statement with her husband, John Farrant, she said the decision had not been taken lightly.
The statement read: "A great deal of thought has been given to planning and providing for the child's present and future well-being, medically, socially and materially.
Women May Not Have Limited Egg Supply
With implications for mothers-to-be, doctors in Boston are turning the long-held belief that women are born with all the eggs they'll ever have upside down. In a study published last month,1 a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School claim they've uncovered a previously unrecognized form of stem cell that can replenish the ovaries with a fresh supply of eggs.
Genes Help Women Over 45 Conceive
Scientists have identified a genetic profile that appears to enable women over 45 to conceive naturally.
A team from Israel's Hadassah University Hospital believe the discovery could help improve fertility treatment for older women.
They told a major European fertility conference how eight Ashkenazi Jewish women who had babies naturally later in life all shared the special genes.
Eggs Thrive in Ovary Transplants
First they did it in rats. Now a sheep's ovary has been removed whole, then frozen, thawed and successfully transplanted back into the same animal. Crucially, the ovary produced eggs capable of becoming embryos.
The experiment raises hopes that women might one day be able to become mothers after cancer therapies have left them infertile.
The aggressive radiation or chemotherapy used to treat many cancers can damage ovaries, so women often have eggs removed before therapy and frozen for future use. But less than 2 per cent of these oocytes survive. An alternative is to remove a slice of an ovary, which is grafted back after treatment. But such grafts also have a high failure rate.
24 September 2005
Toxins From Household Products Transferred to Unborn Children
BEFORE we are even born, our bodies may be riddled with pollution. More chemicals from everyday household products cross the placenta from mother to baby than we ever imagined.
Pieter Sauer and colleagues at the University Hospital Groningen in the Netherlands analysed 42 maternal blood samples and 27 samples of blood taken from the umbilical cord. For the first time, they found chemicals used as antibacterial agents, flame-retardants and detergents in umbilical-cord blood. Traces of pesticides, artificial musks and plasticisers also appeared.
10 September 2005
Where did all the baby boys go?
EVIDENCE continues to pile up that hormone-disrupting chemicals can gender-bend human babies.
Earlier this year it was reported that the sons of women exposed to phthalates during pregnancy tend to have smaller penises (New Scientist, 4 June, p 11). This was the first direct evidence that such chemicals can feminise fetuses in the womb.
Now nearly twice as many girls as boys are being born in the Aamjiwnaang community, who live next door to the Sarnia-Lambton Chemical Valley complex in Ontario, Canada. And though no chemical has yet been shown to be to blame, high levels of hexachlorobenzene (HCB), which also has hormone-disrupting properties, have been found in the local soil, and phthalates are being emitted from part of the complex.
5 September 2005
Age Doesn't Matter
First-timers offer perspectives on motherhood from the bookends of the reproductive cycle.
Eight months into her pregnancy, Wendy Fott often appears to be talking to the walls or the windshield as she putters around her home or drives to work.
This chat might sound like the one-sided conversation of cell phone users and some people with mental illness. Instead, the 36-year-old first-time mom is speaking — lovingly, earnestly, hopefully — to her first child, a baby due June 8.
From 1980 to 2003, the number of Colorado women age 35 and older jumped from 21 percent to 39 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Those statistics do not break out the number of first-time mothers. But chances are Fott represents a swelling percentage of women pushing 40 and finally shopping for maternity clothes.
Waiting on Motherhood
While some of Paul and Sheila Koupal's friends are sending teens off to college, their children aren't signed up for kindergarten.
"They have all this free time," says Sheila Koupal, 39. "But I don't have any regrets at all."Having kids happened at the right time, she says of boys Parker, 4, and Bennett, 2. "It's a good idea to wait," she says.
That's a sentiment obstetricians are hearing more often. Whether parents are starting a new family or adopting a young child, more women are waiting to make the decision. Births in 2003 rose 6 percent for women in their late 30s and 5 percent for women in their early to mid-40s, according to a report in the March issue of Pediatrics.
