After reading a recent Hard Evidence piece about whether fertility “drops off a cliff” at 35, I feel that some hard evidence about the chance of having a baby with IVF is needed. Some of the figures quoted…
Less ‘Vocation, Vocation, Vocation’ according to one lifestyle expert.
Woman by Shutterstock
Everyone’s favourite property expert and house hunter extraordinaire, Kirstie Allsopp, raised some eyebrows when she recently suggested that women’s fertility “falls off a cliff” when they hit 35. Her…
IVF is a medical miracle for many, but for others it’s just business.
Janine/Flickr
Reema Rattan, The Conversation; Charis Palmer, The Conversation e Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
Monash IVF will float on the Australian Securities Exchange today, the second Australian IVF firm to do so. With assisted reproductive technology now firmly on the radar of investors, we investigate the…
Parents in the UK look set to become the first in the world to use a radical IVF technique that some critics have condemned as eugenic engineering. If approved by parliament, so called “three person IVF…
There are outstanding questions about the long-term safety of IVF.
Nina Matthews Photography/Flickr
Jane Halliday, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Babies conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) mostly grow up to be healthy adults and compare well to those conceived naturally, according to research my colleagues and I have just published in…
Women’s ability to conceive and give birth to healthy babies starts to decline before the age of 30.
Image from shutterstock.com
It’s said that “40 is the new 30” and “50 is the new 40”. But, when it comes to female fertility, 40 is still 40, and the likelihood of successful pregnancy and childbirth has notably decreased from age…
No-one wants to hear about the failures and financial costs.
Paul Stevenson
Reflecting on her imminent departure as head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the body that regulates IVF and fertility services, Lisa Jardine said in an interview last week that “nobody…
It’s Nobel season and who could forget IVF pioneer Sir Robert Edwards who won the accolade for medicine in 2010? More than ever before, reproductive medicine is throwing up new treatments and answers to…
The UK government has announced its intention to draft proposals allowing carriers of mitochondrial disease to have babies using a controversial IVF treatment that’s currently prohibited. The procedure…
In a first for Australia, an ovarian tissue transplant has helped a woman fall pregnant after chemotherapy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stacylynn/
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation e Georgina Scambler, The Conversation
For the first time ever in Australia, a woman whose chemotherapy rendered her infertile has fallen pregnant using ovarian tissue taken from her body before her cancer treatment, a new study reports. Chemotherapy…
Embryos matter because of what they mean to those for whom they were generated.
UTS
Over the past two decades, the frozen preservation of embryos has become routine practice in IVF. What currently happens to embryos next is controlled by overlapping and complicated rules that confuse…
Women who undergo IVF are at higher risk of getting blood clots during pregnancy, the study found.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubersen
Women who fall pregnant through in vitro fertilisation are at a higher risk of blood clots and artery blockages than women who get pregnant spontaneously, a new study has found. The study, titled ‘Incidence…
Those who know the identity of their donor from a young age are less likely to experience psychological problems.
Ron Wiecki
University of Tasmania academic Meredith Nash recently argued on The Conversation that women who donate their eggs for fertility treatments should be financially compensated. It’s a risky and time-consuming…
Paying up to $5,000 in a carefully regulated market would recognise the inconveniences associated with donation.
misterbenben
Women are generally born with about a million eggs. Yet, women with reproductive problems or “older” women (over the age of 40) often cannot conceive with their own eggs. The solution is to use donor eggs…
A human egg being worked on in an IVF clinic.
Adrian Wiggins
Considerable public controversy exists around the question of access to in-vitro fertilisation treatment (IVF) for older women. Some support unlimited, publicly-funded access for all infertile women and…
Millions of babies have been born after the use of assisted reproductive technologies, and nothing has gone wrong with the vast majority.
Chiceaux Lynch
Jane Halliday, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Some people may be wondering whether it’s wise to undergo assisted reproduction after recent media headlines about these technologies increasing the risk of birth defects. In fact, millions of babies have…
Researchers studied nearly 310,000 births between 1986 and 2002.
flickr/spamily
Recently published research helps clarify the risk of birth defects linked to assisted reproductive technology. The study authors (including myself) found that a major factor for birth defects was parental…
Candice Reed, Australia’s first IVF baby, will turn 32 next month.
AAP/Ethical Strategies
Babies conceived using commonly available fertility treatments are on average almost 50% more likely to have a birth defect than those conceived naturally, according to the most comprehensive study of…
Sperm is injected into an egg cell using a microscope at an IVF clinic.
EPA/Waltraud Grubitzsch
Babies born through IVF procedures are at greater risk of developing heart problems, according to research that suggests “manipulating nature in this way may have some adverse results”, an Australian IVF…
Professor - Emerging Technologies (Stem Cells) at The University of Melbourne and Group Leader - Stem Cell Ethics & Policy at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, The University of Melbourne
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford