Oh dear

Just for fun, here's some 'bad science' from a fruity American conservative about the pill, fertility and being gay.

Jewish fertility in Israel

No comment on the political implications of this piece by Yoram Ettinger. But it clearly shows how fertility, politics, nationalism and religion can interact with each other in quite dramatic ways.

Fertilität und gesellschaftliche Entwicklung

The Jacobs Foundation has recently funded a large scale project to examine the social, demographic, medical and biomedical context fertility in German-speaking countries. The first meeting of this group will be held in Berlin later this week. I will be be making a presentation entitled 'Differential fertility in Europe: region, education, religion and migration'. I will post this presentation later this week, and write a report about the proceedings of this first meeting.

Debate on IVF

The New York Times has today posed the question: Should the United States move beyond recommended guidelines for fertility treatments to impose stricter regulations on I.V.F. procedures? Should transfers be limited to one embryo at a time?

In order to get closer to an answer, they've enlisted nine experts to discuss the various pros and cons. They all make some interesting points. See it here.

Good news

Some good news published in the BMJ this week. The study, based on a survey of 762 women who experienced miscarriage, has shown that that 83.6% have reported a subsequent pregnancy, and 82% have experienced a live birth. As the authors say, 'Women can be reassured that long term
fertility concerns need not affect their choice of miscarriage management'.

The full text of the paper is available here.

Intelligender

Intelligender, the device that allows you to find the gender of your unborn child at 10 weeks has just gone on sale in New Zealand.

As elsewhere, this has sparked a debate over whether terminations will increase as a result of the child being the 'wrong' gender. This could, as some have argued, be a particularly salient problem in country's which place a very great premium on male offspring.

Momblogs

Another thing I'll be writing a lot about is how parents, prospective parents and the childless use the Web to communicate with each other and share and retrieve information. This piece in today's Wichita Eagle posits some of the reasons why this might be useful.

Korea's fertility problem

A new report from Statistics Korea gives further evidence of the repercussions for fertility of urban women marrying later and later. Nothing new, but all adds to the evidence that suggests the problems of very low fertility in East Asian urban centres is not going to 'go away.'

Fertility 'tourism'

Another good article out recently in Developing World Bioethics examining fertility tourism in Argentina, which is marketed toward wealthy Americans. This is important as most research in this field has concentrated on Eastern Europe and Asia. As the abstract states:

We argue that basic national regulatory mechanisms are required in countries such as Argentina that are marketing fertility services to local and international publics. Specifically, regular oversight of all fertility clinics is essential to ensure that consumer information is accurate and that marketed services are safe and effective. It is in the best interests of consumers, health professionals and policy makers that the reproductive tourism industry adopts safe and responsible medical practices.

Also in that issue is an interesting paper on international surrogacy by Casey Humbyrd, where

It is argued that the only valid objection to international surrogacy is that surrogate mothers may be exploited by being given too little compensation. However, the possibility of exploitation is a weak argument for prohibition, as employment alternatives for potential surrogate mothers may be more exploitative or more harmful than surrogacy. It is concluded that international surrogacy must be regulated, and the proposed regulatory mechanism is termed Fair Trade Surrogacy. The guidelines of Fair Trade Surrogacy focus on minimizing potential harms to all parties and ensuring fair compensation for surrogate mothers.

Fertility rates drop when children are better fed

Just a quick link to a thoughtful piece by Donald Attwood, Professor of Anthropology at McGill.