In Choosing a Sperm Donor, a Roll of the Genetic Dice
In households across the country, children conceived with donated sperm are struggling with serious genetic conditions inherited from men they have never met.
Birth-Defect Risk Seen in Assisted Conception
An Australian survey of about 300,000 pregnancies, with more than 6,000 resulting from fertility treatments, found that treatment was associated with a 28 percent greater risk for birth defects.
Watching TV Linked to Poor Diet in Students
A national survey of more than 12,000 students in grades 5 to 10 has found that television viewing is associated not only with unhealthy snacking while watching, but also with unhealthy eating at all times.
First Lady Has Plan to Get Kids Involved in Sports
The first lady is partnering with the U.S. Olympic Committee, the Partnership for a Healthier America, U.S. Paralympics and numerous national governing bodies that have pledged their time and resources toward introducing young people to their sports over the course of the summer.
If You’re Trying to Conceive, Go Easy On Your Workout
Moderate exercise is tied to greater success among women trying to get pregnant, but those who work out vigorously take longer to conceive, an international study has found.
The Easter Egg Roll Through the Years
The White House will hold its Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn on April 9. This will be the 134th year for the event.
Womb transplants may soon become an option for women born without a womb, or those who’ve had their wombs removed due to disease. Animal experiments have been successful and now doctors are ready to try implanting donor wombs into the body’s of wombless women desiring to conceive and carry their own baby, according to an article in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Research.
A womb transplant wouldn’t be easy, or budget-friendly though — a close tissue match must be found (from a mom or sister for example) and immunosuppressant drugs would be required to prevent organ rejection, a c-section is a must because transplanted wombs wouldn’t be able to handle the strain of natural childbirth, women would likely need IVF to become pregnant in the first place, and the womb would need to be removed after one or two pregnancies.
As a medical advancement, the possibility of a womb transplant is impressive, but do we really need to go there? IVF and other fertility treatments can help pregnancy become a reality for many women, and for women who can’t conceive and carry their own child even with those technologies, this may be the only answer — but should there be a point at which we say there simply isn’t an answer? Even with the ability of womb transplant technology, very few women will be able to afford the costly production it requires, and many are still questioning the safety of the procedure.
There are a lot of good reasons to spend some quality time between the sheets over the next week – Valentine’s Day, a fun way to combat freezing winter temps, trying to conceive, or maybe because you want your baby-to-be to have one of the coolest birthdays ever.
According to Dr. Jamie Grifo, one of the nation’s leading fertility experts, if you’re hoping for an 11-11-11 birth date, the time to get busy is now! Believe it or not, Grifo has been fielding tons of phone calls of hopeful 11-11-11 parents.
Even if you do score that special birth date, you’ll likely never live up to the amazing numbers feat Michigan mom Barbie Soper accomplished. Her kids were born on 8-8-08, 9-9-09, and 10-10-10. No word yet on whether or not she’ll attempt to continue her streak on 11-11-11, but it sounds like she’s already a pretty busy mom!
Ultimately to give birth on November 11, 2011, February 18 is the magic date if you were to have the perfect pregnancy based on a regular 28-day cycle and 40 weeks of pregnancy. But since few pregnancies end on schedule, any day now could work.
If you’re trying to conceive, you might want to make sure you’re at a healthy weight first. New research suggests that overweight women who lose body fat before getting pregnant could improve the lifelong health of their babies. Plus, it may be a way to break the obesity cycle since previous studies have shown that babies born to obese moms are more likely to become obese kids and adults.
The collaborative study from researchers at the Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio and the National Institue of Nutrition in Mexico City was carried out on lab rats, not humans, but nonetheless the results were encouraging. They studied females rats that were raised on high-fat diets and compared one group that continued that diet through pregnancy and beyond with another group that started a healthier diet, with less fat, one month before mating.
“It is of interest that offspring of the obese mothers also showed high levels of leptin, a hormone that signals the brain to decrease appetite,” said Dr Peter Nathanielsz, a professor in UTHSC’s Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Research. “This may mean they’ve developed a brain that is resistant to the signals that tell them they’re getting fat, and they just go on eating and thus get fat as their mothers were.”
More positively though — researchers said this was the first time that a study has shown that changing a mother’s diet before pregnancy makes it possible to reverse the metabolic effects in babies born to obese moms. In other words, women who’ve struggled with their weight for their whole lives may not pass the same health issue on to their offspring if they lose weight before conceiving. With the childhood obesity epidemic, any ideas for how to help future generations are welcome. And beyond the effect on your child’s lifelong health, excess body weight can mess with your hormones, in turn making your menstrual cycles less regular, and lowering your chance of getting pregnant in the first place.
There are a lot of good reasons to spend some quality time between the sheets over the next week – Valentine’s Day, a fun way to combat freezing winter temps, 
If you’re trying to conceive, you might want to make sure you’re at a healthy weight first. New research suggests that overweight women who lose body fat before getting pregnant could improve the lifelong health of their babies. Plus, it may be a way to break the obesity cycle since previous studies have shown that babies born to obese moms are more likely to become obese kids and adults.