Women who have insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF) may be more likely to have a baby than women who have to pay entirely out-of-pocket for fertility treatments, a U.S. study in JAMA suggests. In any given attempt at IVF, insurance status didn't influence whether women had a baby, the study found. But when the first cycle of IVF failed, which often happens, women were more likely to try again if their insurance covered at least some of the costs. One cycle of IVF can cost around $12,000, with up to another $5,000 for extra medicines women may need, said lead study author Dr. Emily Jungheim of Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine in Missouri. "Women without cov
Old health advice often dies hard. This is particularly true — perhaps dangerously so — of historic advice for pregnant women, according to a new Viewpoint published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Most adults remember the traditional guidelines for expectant mothers. Get as much rest as possible during your pregnancy, even prolonged bed rest if complications arise. At the same time, “eat for two” — you and your developing child. According to the new report, however, “these misguided recommendations” have “evolved into a major contributor to the worldwide obesity epidemic.” Fifty years ago, gynecological medicine emphasized the need for women to gain enough
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplements during pregnancy had no significant impact on either IQ or cognition scores of children compared to mothers who received placebo, a small randomized trial in Australia found. There was no significant difference between the mean IQ of DHA and control groups for children at age 7 years (98.31 versus 97.32, adjusted mean difference 1.30, 95% CI -0.47 to 3.08, P=0.15), reported Jacqueline F. Gould, BoSc, of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, and colleagues. The authors also noted that while perceptual reasoning scores in the DHA group were "slightly higher," there was no significant difference in performance on measures of language,
A new smartphone attachment can evaluate a man's semen and determine his level of fertility with up to 98% accuracy, a new study has showed. The new technology -- consisting of an external accessory in which sperm samples are inserted and an app that analyzes them -- could make testing as straightforward as a home pregnancy test, the scientists say. More than 45 million couples were estimated to be infertile globally in 2010, about 15% of all couples worldwide. Men are estimated to be solely responsible for up to 30% and to contribute to up to 50% of cases overall, according to one study. The new technology is still a few years away, but the team behind it hopes this new form of testing will
While a woman can get basic infertility exams and ovulation-induction treatments from her regular gynecologist, she typically needs to see a specialist for more advanced fertility procedures, such as in vitro fertilization. However, a new study found that almost 25 million women of reproductive age in the U.S. don’t live near fertility clinics that provide important services for many hoping to get pregnant. Published in the journal Fertility & Sterility, the study discovered that nearly 40 percent of reproductive-age women across the country either have limited or no access to assisted-reproductive-technology (ART) clinics nearby. Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and University o
Image: An artificially created three-dimensional model of a mouse embryo at 96 hours, left, and then an embryo cultured in a test tube for 48 hours from the blastocyst stage, right. The red color denotes the embryo-like structure while the blue shows extra-embryonic material that would form the placenta. Courtesy of Sarah Harrison and Gaelle Recher, Zernicka-Goetz Lab, University of Cambridge Trying to mimic the early stages of reproduction, Cambridge University researchers cultivated two types of mouse stem cells in a Petri dish and watched an embryo emerge -- one that closely resembled a natural mouse embryo in its architecture, its development process and its ability to assemble itself.
Overall fertility rates and reproductive rates have fallen among U.S. women from 1990 to 2014, despite a 10-year spike from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, said CDC researchers. The total fertility rate, which measures the potential impact of current fertility patterns on reproduction or completed family size, declined approximately 10% from 2,081.0 births per a hypothetical cohort of 1,000 women in 1990 to 1,862.5 per 1,000 in 2014, reported Brady E. Hamilton, PhD, and Sharon E. Kirmeyer, PhD [deceased], of the CDC Division of Vital Statistics. These rates declined 5% from 1990 to 1997, with a 8% spike from 1997 to 2007, before falling 12% from 2007 to 2014 -- with a less than 1% increase f
