Pride Angel

Pregnant women should be encouraged by the Government to eat at least two portions of fish a week to reduce the risk of their children developing brain disorders, a group of leading nutrition experts have claimed.

The nutritionists fear that current official advice to women, which recommends they eat no more than two portions of fish a week, is leading to an increase in brain disorders.

They say recent research has shown that omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, known as docosahexaenoic acid, are essential for the brain to function properly and current Government advice is insufficient to provide women and their children with enough.

The researchers are to appeal to the Food Standards Agency and the Government's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition in an open letter asking the two bodies to revise their advice.

They believe that women should be eating at least three portions of fish a week.

Fish consumption among women of child bearing age and girls is currently restricted due to concerns about the presence of potentially harmful contaminants in fish such as dioxins and methylmercury.

Speaking at a conference held at the Royal Society of Medicine in London last week, Professor Jack Winkler, director of the Nutrition Policy Unit at London Metropolitan University, said the benefits of fish oil far outweighed other risks.

He said: "The Food Standards Agency issued advice to women and pregnant women about fish in 2004 which was ultra conservative. Since then, there has been research which indicates that women who have eaten more fish than those recommendations suffer no harm but their child's brain performance improved.

"The evidence is beginning to show that this ultra conservative advice is effectively denying women the benefits of fish. Worryingly the current advice is scaring women off eating fish completely as the message it gives is that fish is risky."

A study published in the Lancet in 2007 of almost 12,000 pregnant women showed that those who ate less than 340 grams of seafood a week, which is equivalent to two and a half portions, had children who were at greater risk of having low verbal intelligence.

It concluded that the risks from loss of nutrients were greater than the risk of harm from contaminants in fish.

Professor Michael Crawford, director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at London Metropolitan University, said: "Unlike the rest of the body, the brain is mainly made of fat. It needs these fatty acids for brain growth and development.

"We are deeply concerned that this has been more or less neglected in the current advice and unless there is a change in nutrition advice to take the brain into account, then mental disorders are going to continue to grow at an alarming rate."

New research presented at the conference also suggested that docosahexaenoic acid deficiency may also play a role in the development of behavioural disorders such as ADHD in children.

A study by Dr Robert McNamara, from the department of psychiatry at University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, found that boys aged between eight and ten who were given additional docosahexaenoic acid had increased brain activity in attention tasks than those taken placebos.

Fish oil has also been linked to a number of other health benefits including reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer, combating memory loss and arthritis. The sale of supplements containing omega 3 fatty acids is now a major business.

Some recent studies have also found no evidence that taking fish oil tablets had any effect on boosting the academic abilities of children.

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said: "Our advice on oily fish consumption in pregnancy is based on a 2004 review involving two independent scientific committees who weighed up the nutritional benefits of oily fish against the possible risks, and the report included pregnant and lactating women."

Article: 30th May 2010 www.telegraph.co.uk

Read more about nutrition & vitamins for conception and pregnancy.

Some parents-to-be are desperate to decide the sex of their new baby. Under current UK law this is not allowed, except in order to avoid gender-linked diseases, such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy. In this week's Scrubbing Up bioethicist Stephen Wilkinson argues that it's time for the law to change.

For millennia, people have sought to influence the gender of their offspring and there are numerous folk myths about, for example, the effect of different sexual positions or foods on your baby's sex.

Nowadays there are some much more reliable methods, like preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This involves creating several embryos outside the body and implanting only male or female ones. Another option is sperm sorting, which involves dividing a sperm sample into 'male' and 'female' subgroups.

In some other parts of the world, sex selection is available on demand, provided that you are able and willing to pay for it. In the UK, it is not.

A ban on sex selection may well be justified in counties like China and India where the predominance of son-preference has already led to a significant shortage of girls. But the available evidence suggests that, in Western Europe, the number of parents preferring boys is roughly the same as the number preferring girls.

As well as concerns about population sex ratio, people often cite moral objections to sex selection, like saying children should be regarded as "gifts" meaning there should be no attempt by parents to pick and choose their characteristics.

Others say sex selection is sexist and that allowing it here would make it harder for governments in places like China and India to resist. All of these arguments can be countered.

A right to choice

Firstly, should parents regard their children as 'gifts'? Children are not literally gifts, or if they are, from God perhaps, then they are no more gifts than other positive things in life.

Yet we don't, in general, say that it's wrong to attempt to shape life's positive things by, for example, choosing a career, or a house, or a partner.

Secondly, sex selection is not necessarily sexist. While there are no doubt some prospective parents who think that men are superior to women (or vice versa), for most the choice is just a preference.

A pertinent example here is what's called family balancing - where a family that already has three boys wants to add a girl to even things up.

Finally, the fear that allowing sex selection here would open the floodgates elsewhere is unfounded. This argument takes far too seriously the influence of British policy on the behaviour of Chinese and Indian sex selectors, many of whom are acting outside even their own laws.

Sex selection in China and India is already happening on a grand scale anyway, despite the fact that the UK does not allow 'social' sex selection.

Our 'setting a good example' by prohibiting sex selection does not seem to be making much difference. So, while I am not a sex selection enthusiast, and certainly don't think that it should be encouraged or paid for by the NHS (except to avoid sex-linked disease) the arguments for prohibiting it are not as strong as they may at first appear.

There is real cost and harm attached to the ban: some people are distressed by not being able to have the family of their choice, while others are forced to turn to seeking treatment overseas.

I believe that we should allow sex selection in the UK within the context of our carefully regulated reproductive medicine sector.

VIEWPOINT Stephen Wilkinson Professor of Bioethics at Keele University

Article: 26th May 2010 www.bbc.co.uk

Read more about parenting at www.prideangel.com

A baby boom among older women has trebled the number giving birth after their 40th birthday. Almost 27,000 babies were born to mothers over 40 last year, figures revealed yesterday. The unprecedented level is nearly three times the total of 20 years ago and up by 50 per cent over the past decade.

Britain now has one of the highest birth rates for older women in the world, with 3.8 per cent of all babies born to mothers over 40. Only Italy has a higher level in Europe. But the trend has led medical experts to warn that older women face greater risks of miscarriages and complications - with calls for the NHS to spend more on specialised services for those expecting children as they approach middle age. More and more Britons are delaying motherhood following the rise in women enjoying well-paid careers, as well as the growing need for both partners in a couple to have an income. An increasing number of live-in relationships also means many young women are uncertain they have the stability they need to raise a child.

The waiting and uncertainty has also left a record number of women childless - latest estimates say that one in five is likely to go through life without having children. Office for National Statistics figures yesterday revealed there were 26,976 babies born to mothers of 40 and over last year, compared with 9,336 in 1989. And 12.9 in every 1,000 women of 40 and over in England and Wales had a child in 2009, up from 8.1 in every 1,000 ten years earlier.

Because the ONS does not give a detailed breakdown of the figures, many mothers could be over 45, 50 or even older. At the same time the number of children born to mothers in their 30s has dropped - almost certainly as a result of the impact of recession on incomes. Numbers of children born to women aged between 35 and 39 fell for the first time in a decade, and babies for women aged 30 to 34 were down for the first time in five years.

The trend means Britain has the second highest birth rate among older women in Europe, behind Italy. That country's prosperous northern cities, education and career opportunities are leading women to delay motherhood in the same way as in Britain, while in poorer rural areas a tradition of women who stay at home has also encouraged pregnancies later in life. In America, births to mothers over 40 are running higher than at any time since the Sixties - but British over-40s are still a third more likely to have a child.

The average age of a new mother in the UK is now 29.4 years, a year older than the average in 1999. Among married mothers, the typical age of childbirth is even older, and married mothers on average have their first child at 31. Researcher and author on family life Patricia Morgan said women delaying children until they feel financially secure are in danger of putting motherhood off for too long.

She said: 'It comes to a point where you can never afford children. What is happening is that women in their 20s and 30s are delaying families because they have to pay the mortgage, and you need two earners for that these days. Women are also in relationships they do not trust to last.

'People wait endlessly and more and more people are not having children until their 40s.' Women who choose motherhood at a later age also run much greater health risks for themselves and their baby. Over the age of 35, the possibility of infertility rises, and for those who become pregnant there are greater chances of miscarriage or complications during pregnancy or labour.

Children of older mothers also run a greater risk of ill-health or abnormalities such as Down's syndrome. Last year the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said a woman over 40 was two or three times more likely to lose her baby than a younger mother.

Its president Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran said the NHS should be better equipped to care for older mothers. He said: 'Later pregnancy is associated-with more complications and specialised obstetric help is required to care for this growing group of women. Later maternal age is now a fact of life and something which the NHS must prepare for.' Overall, the numbers of children born last year were down in England and Wales, from 708,711 in 2008 to 706,248.

Birth rates stayed high largely because immigrant mothers are having more children than mothers who were born in Britain. Nearly a quarter of all children born last year, 24.7 per cent, had mothers who were born abroad. The proportion of children born to foreign-born mothers has gone up from 14.3 per cent ten years ago. Births outside marriage also continued to go up last year with 46.2 per cent of babies born to unmarried parents, around a fifth more than in the late 1990s. The figure is higher among mothers born in Britain, more than half of whom were unmarried when they gave birth last year.

Single, gay, lesbian? read more about your parenting options

Article 26th May 2010 www.dailymail.co.uk

A 59 year-old woman has backed out of IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatment at the last minute, as she feels the risks at her age are too great. Susan Tollefsen said she was worried after she nearly died following ill-effects from her previous IVF-enabled birth.

'We've basically decided the risks are too great and I'm too old. My advice to older women wanting children is don't risk it', said Mrs Tollefsen, a retired teacher.

Mrs Tollefsen already has a daughter, Freya, conceived through IVF when she was 57. However, she had to travel to a Russian clinic for IVF using a donor egg after being refused treatment in the UK because of her age. A burst ulcer in her stomach after the birth nearly killed her.

'We want a sibling for Freya for when we are not around but we had to seriously reconsider it. The doctors didn't have any problems treating me but I know there are huge risks. I wish I was 35 again but I'm not - and I've got to realise that, however hard it is. I had hoped to set a precedent for older women but that's not going to happen.'

Peter Bowen-Simpkins, medical director of the London Women's Clinic in Harley Street, said: 'I would very strongly agree with the view that in general women over 50 should not have IVF treatments. While in some cases there are compelling reasons, I think it is unlikely we will see anyone else of 59 attempting IVF, and there are a lot of medical reasons they shouldn't.'

Michaela Aston of the pro-life charity Life, which offers counselling for women considering abortion and fertility treatment, said offering IVF to post-menopausal women was a deeply worrying development. 'Women of this age do not conceive naturally for a reason, we should be guided by Mother Nature on this.'

Article 24th May 2010 Bionews 559

Read more about IVF and looking for a sperm donor

From Britain's leading fertility expert, an intriguing question...Is a woman more likely to conceive if she enjoys sex? By Professor Robert Winston

The more frequently you have sex, the more chance you have of getting pregnant. Nobody will be surprised at that - but what is surprising is that, according to various scientific studies, an average couple in Britain having reasonably regular sex have only about an 18 per cent chance of conceiving in any given month.

Interestingly, in New South Wales the chance of getting pregnant each month is significantly higher at about 24 per cent. And that's almost certainly because Australians tend to have sex more often.

In Europe, the French tend to think of themselves as the sexiest nation, but it turns out the average chance of pregnancy per month in Paris (if you are a native) is about 15 per cent. To many Britons, this may be a rather satisfying statistic. Throughout my career as a professor at Imperial College in London treating people suffering from infertility, I have often wondered how much a couple's physical relationship impacts on their chances of conception.

It was some years ago that I first read that it is not merely the frequency of intercourse that improves a woman's chance of conceiving but also how often she has an orgasm.

Obviously, for men an orgasm is essential for a pregnancy, because without one sperm will not be released. But previously the female orgasm, though highly pleasurable, has often been thought of as being biologically useless. Certainly, this link between satisfying sex and conception is an interesting one

But it was with some trepidation that I first researched this idea 20 years ago. Back then, I organised a study of infertile women attending a clinic at Hammersmith Hospital.

It was one of the trickiest and most delicate pieces of research I ever conducted, as it required considerable tact and sensitivity. We had to ask patients about the most intimate aspect of their sexual relationship, particularly about how satisfying it was and how often they had an orgasm.

One of my female medical colleagues conducted much of this questionnaire in the belief that women would be more likely to speak candidly to her. Over many months, we built up a picture from conversations with nearly 1,000 female patients. When analysing the answers, we divided our patients into three main groups. The first group were women who had entirely healthy and apparently fertile male partners, but despite extensive investigation had no diagnosable cause for their infertility.

The second group were women with damaged or blocked Fallopian tubes, which meant the sperm could not meet the egg and therefore fertilisation could not take place. And in the third group were women who did not ovulate because of hormonal problems and those whose partners had a low sperm count. It turned out that the women in the first group with completely unexplained infertility tended to say they had a rather unsatisfying sexual relationship and seldom or never had an orgasm.

These women were medically entirely normal and our tests failed to find an explanation for their childlessness.

Article 20th May 2010: www.dailymail.co.uk

So how is this of interest to lesbian couples I hear you ask. Well surely having pleasurable sex with your partner, be it male or female still helps in the preparation for conception, the orgasm not only helps with relaxation, but one theory is that the muscles of the vagina and the womb contract, sometimes quite vigorously, during orgasm and that way more sperm enters the uterus, helping the journey to meet the egg in the fallopian tubes. This may give reason to the fact that home insemination using donor sperm, within a relaxed environment, whereby the partner can also be involved in the baby making process, can have higher success rates than artificial insemination (intra-cervical insemination) within a clinical situation.

It is such a good job though that lesbian women don't conceive every time they have enjoyable sex, otherwise there would be alot more babies in the world.

Pride Angel www.prideangel.com

As she lay on her hospital bed breastfeeding her newborn baby, Louise Pollard was overcome with love for the scrap of humanity in her arms.

After all, she'd reached the end of a difficult pregnancy which had seen both her own and her unborn child's life hang in the balance as a result of pre-eclampsia. Despite this scene of maternal bliss, however, just three days later Louise handed Danny over to a couple and drove away - a shattering parting which left her crying for three days and yearning only to see her baby again.

'Afterwards, I sat in my mother's conservatory with my sobs literally racking through my body,' she says. 'I could still smell Danny on my jumper and I desperately wanted to be with him. Giving him up was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.' So what on earth was this young mother doing giving her child away? At 23, Louise had become - for the second time - a surrogate for a childless couple. Having had her first surrogate baby at the age of just 21, Louise is thought to be the youngest surrogate mother in the UK. But her candid descriptions of the emotional challenges she faced highlight just how much surrogacy is a role that is rarely straightforward.

Her experience was particularly unusual because both the surrogate children she's had so far were biologically hers. 'At one point, I was close to driving up to London to see Danny and I wondered if I'd done the right thing in giving him up, but the legal situation we would have then ended up in - and the distress I'd have caused the couple in question - doesn't even bear thinking about,' she says. (In theory, as biological mother, Louise would probably have a right to keep Danny had she wanted to.)

Louise continues: 'Mum was wonderful and told me that if I genuinely felt I'd made the wrong decision, then we would have to see what we could do, but that I shouldn't do anything rash. 'Gradually, the fog cleared and I started remembering why I'd agreed to be their surrogate in the first place. I'd already given them one child a year earlier, and now Danny was completing their family. 'As time went on, I was able to rationalise that I only felt so bereft because I'd bonded with Danny, which was something none of us had expected would happen. For instance, I'd planned to only express milk for him as I'd done with his big sister, but because he was unwell the doctors recommended I breastfed to be sure he benefited from my antibodies. 'But even so, at the time, I wasn't sure then I'd ever be a surrogate again.'

Today, a year on, Louise is embarking on the process for another couple. She is going through gruelling IVF treatment, trying for what will be her fourth baby. 'My mum took a photo of me the other day and I couldn't resist turning sideways for the camera just so you could see that, for once, I'm not actually pregnant,' says Louise, a PA from Bristol.

'At my age, most women are about 'me, me, me', getting drunk and having sex, but all I've been doing for the past few years is having babies. While my friends are out drinking and partying, I've been at home by myself watching television with a big bump and heartburn. I haven't even been able to have a drink on either of my past two birthdays because I've been pregnant.'

Louise says that she feels surrogacy is her calling, and she plans to have a baby a year until she is no longer physically able to. She hopes one day she might have more babies than Carol Horlock, who has had 12 babies for other couples and is widely known as the country's most prolific surrogate mother. Louise, who lives with her husband Damian, 24, a soldier, and her son Jaden, three, was just 17 when she first considered surrogacy. 'I remember watching a programme about surrogacy with my mum,' she says. 'The overriding thing I remember is the look on the couple's faces when they were presented with their baby. I thought how wonderful it would be to help couples like that and I said to my mum that one day, I would like to be a surrogate.'

Louise says that she feels surrogacy is her calling, and she plans to have a baby a year until she is no longer physically able to. She hopes one day she might have more babies than Carol Horlock, who has had 12 babies for other couples and is widely known as the country's most prolific surrogate mother. Louise, who lives with her husband Damian, 24, a soldier, and her son Jaden, three, was just 17 when she first considered surrogacy. 'I remember watching a programme about surrogacy with my mum,' she says. 'The overriding thing I remember is the look on the couple's faces when they were presented with their baby. I thought how wonderful it would be to help couples like that and I said to my mum that one day, I would like to be a surrogate.'

Article 20th May 2010 Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about surrogacy and egg donation.

Young women undergoing cancer treatment have an increasing number of options for preserving their fertility, a leading researcher told attendees today at the 58th Annual Clinical Meeting of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Thanks to a new medical discipline known as oncofertility, the reproductive outlook for women cancer patients is becoming as good as for men, who long have had the option of banking their sperm, according to Teresa K. Woodruff, PhD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, in her lecture "Oncofertility: The Preservation of Fertility Options for Young People with Cancer." A promising new technique for preserving ovarian tissue has the potential to safeguard the future fertility even of very young girls undergoing cancer treatment, she said.

Dr. Woodruff, the Thomas J. Watkins professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern, coined the term "oncofertility" to describe oncologists and reproductive specialists working hand-in-hand to preserve patients' fertility while treating their disease. She is the leader of the Oncofertility Consortium, which draws on cutting-edge research to counsel patients on fertility options. Headquartered at Northwestern and supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Consortium operates through more than 50 centers in 29 states.

About 140,000 people under age 45 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States, Dr. Woodruff said. "There are no good numbers for how many are threatened with loss of fertility, because it depends on the course of the disease and treatment prescribed," she said.

Chemotherapy affects fertility by attacking follicles in the ovaries that contain a woman's lifetime supply of eggs, Dr. Woodruff explained. Because follicles grow rapidly, they are especially sensitive to cancer drugs, which target fast-growing cancer cells. If drugs damage only mature follicles and the eggs they contain, a woman may stop having periods during treatment but resume menstrual cycles after she completes chemotherapy. But if drugs destroy all the follicles, she will be left sterile.

Radiation treatment to the abdomen can damage the follicles, as well as the uterus. If directed to the head, radiation can impact fertility by blocking production of reproductive hormones in the brain.

Many women with cancer who want to safeguard their fertility opt for egg or embryo banking, which oncofertility specialists are making available to more patients. "Egg banking also is much more effective now than five or ten years ago, because we can freeze the eggs better," Dr. Woodruff said.

However, egg banking is not suitable for girls who have not yet gone through puberty or for women who cannot postpone cancer treatment while they take hormones to stimulate production of mature eggs. A new option called ovarian tissue cryopreservation sidesteps these problems. Doctors remove an ovary via laparoscopy, an outpatient surgery that takes 30 to 45 minutes. The procedure requires no hormones and does not delay cancer treatment for more than a couple of days. Tissue from the removed ovary is sliced into strips, frozen, and stored. Because a girl is born with all the eggs she will ever have, this technique could be used on a child as young as one year of age, Dr. Woodruff said.

Following cancer treatment or whenever a woman is ready to have a child, the ovarian tissue can be thawed and transplanted back into her body. "Worldwide, there have been about 20 live births resulting from this procedure, including those among some cancer patients," Dr. Woodruff said. Because transplantation does carry the potential risk of reintroducing cancer cells back into the body, it is not recommended for women who have had ovarian cancer or blood system cancers, such as leukemia or lymphoma.

Researchers are working hard to perfect a safer use of preserved ovarian tissue called in vitro follicle maturation, which may be available in several years. "Instead of growing follicles in a woman's body, we grow them in a dish," Dr. Woodruff explained. "That would allow us to eliminate the possibility of reintroducing the cancer she's just survived. We've produced live, healthy offspring in mice and have gotten good quality eggs in both baboons and rhesus monkeys. Human follicles also have adapted rapidly to the in vitro system. They grow rapidly and are fairly easy to work with."

Article 18th May 2010 www.medicalnewstoday.com

Need donor eggs? read more about egg donation www.prideangel.com

Sex may become redundant as a method of conceiving babies as couples routinely turn to IVF, scientists have predicted. They say thirtysomethings will increasingly rely on artificial methods of fertilisation because natural human reproduction is 'fairly inefficient'. It means that in future, sex will be nothing more than a leisure activity - hammering a further nail into the Christian idea that the role of sex is to produce children.

If the experts are right, it means the sci-fi world of books such as Brave New World, in which all children are born in 'hatcheries', could soon be a step closer to reality. And it raises further ethical questions over whether greater use of IVF will lead to eugenics, with couples screening out characteristics they regard as undesirable.

The startling new vision of the future is the brainchild of John Yovich, a veterinary doctor from Murdoch University in Australia. He believes IVF has the potential to ease the pressure on couples who have delayed having children to their thirties or forties to pursue a career, because in the future going for the test tube option will be much more effective than trying for a baby naturally.

Even young adults have no more than a one-in-four chance every month of reproducing through sex, and among the over 35s, this falls to one in 10. This compares to a near 100 per cent success rate which he believes will be possible with IVF within 10 years. Dr Yovich, co-author of a new report in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine, said: 'We are not quite at that stage yet, but that is where we're heading. Natural human reproduction is at best a fairly inefficient process. 'Within the next five to 10 years, couples approaching 40 will assess the IVF industry first when they want to have a baby.'

The vet, based his hunch on the fact that in cattle, IVF works almost 100 per cent of the time. He said there was no reason that success rate could not be replicated in humans very soon. His co-author, Australian vet Gabor Vajta, said test-tube embryo production in cattle was 100 times more efficient than natural means. He said there was no reason why IVF in humans should not become 100 times more efficient than natural sex.

At present, IVF only has a 50 per cent success rate - among the most healthy couples. But new techniques, such as intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection - in which a single sperm is injected straight into an egg, are already improving success rates. It could mean that, in the future, artificial human reproduction could also be 100 times more efficient than natural means of trying for a baby.

Gedis Grudzinskas, a Harley Street infertility specialist, said: 'It wouldn't surprise me if IVF does become significantly more efficient than natural reproduction, but I doubt whether you could ever completely guarantee that it would work.' In Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World, human reproduction has been done away with and is replaced by a hatching process, in which groups of identical children are born from surgically-removed ovaries and incubated in bottles.

Article: 16th May 2010 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about getting pregnant and IVF

A lesbian couple claim they were forced out of their church after they were spotted holding hands during a service. Kersten Pegden and Nina Lawrence said that other members of the congregation at St Nicholas Anglican church in Corfe Mullen, Dorset, thought their behaviour was 'overtly sexual'. They said other couples within the congregation held hands and they felt it was their sexuality that had influenced the complaints.

Miss Pegden, 38, had attended the church for many years. She separated from her husband last September and is now going through a divorce. She began a relationship with Miss Lawrence , 31, last November but the new relationship had split the congregation of mainly elderly people, Miss Pegden said.

Miss Pegden has told how her daughter Emily, 12. has left the church choir and her son Elliot, 14, is no longer a server at the church that attracts up to 70 worshippers each Sunday.

She said: 'The vicar, who is a woman, wanted to know the details about my divorce, how long it was going to be, and the fact it had dragged on too long.

'And she said members of the congregation said that during hymns we were dishonouring God because they said we were singing the hymns to each other, and that we were overtly sexual with each other. 'The church says it accepts gay people as long as they are not practising.

'As soon as I had a partner they knew we were practising, but they can't refuse entry to anyone. 'Instead they said we must not associate with each other while we were at church. They said it was our choice. But it was an impossible choice.

'They said even the way we looked at each other was not acceptable. 'And as I was not divorced from my husband I was seen to be openly adulterous as well.' 'I said all we do is hold hands. I pointed out there is an elderly couple who hold hands. It's no more sexual than if a straight couple did it.

'These people who are watching us, instead of worshipping, are the ones dishonouring God.' Miss Lawrence, said: 'I have been out for 13 years and I've never had this reaction.' In a statement, a spokesman for St Nicholas Church said: 'St Nicholas welcomes people from a variety of backgrounds and gives private pastoral care to those in need.

'Issues have arisen with members of the congregation which are being addressed compassionately.' Miss Pegden has written a letter to the vicar, Rev Pamela Walker, telling her why she was leaving the church, which she has attended for four years.

The letter included the line: 'I have spent 25 years hiding and do not wish to continue that now.' The couple, who are both carers, now attend another church.

Article: 14th May 2010 www.dailymail.co.uk

Lesbian, gay? considering becoming parents? read more at www.prideangel.com

Pregnant woman are not getting enough vitamin D, according to new research.

While taking prenatal vitamins does raise vitamin D levels in mothers-to-be, the study suggested higher doses are needed for many women.

Study author Professor Adit Ginde, from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, said: 'We already know vitamin D is important for bone health of the mother and infant, but we are just starting to scratch the surface about the many potential health benefits of vitamin D during pregnancy.'

The study, to be published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, found 70 per cent of pregnant women in the U.S had insufficient levels of Vitamin D.

Women with darker skin, those who cover their skin for religious or cultural reasons and those living further north during winter months are at particularly high risk for lower vitamin D levels.

'Prenatal vitamins do help raise vitamin D levels, but many women start taking them after becoming pregnant. Although research is ongoing, I think it's best for women to start a few months before becoming pregnant to maximize the likely health benefits,' said Professor Ginde.

There is a growing body of evidence that vitamin D levels have fallen below what's considered healthy in the overall population - likely from decreased outdoor activity.

And vitamin D has reemerged as an important nutritional factor in maternal and infant health. Vitamin D deficiency early in life has been linked to increased risk of respiratory infections and childhood wheezing.

Lower levels in adults have been linked to cardiovascular disease and specific types of cancer.

Article: 12th May 2010 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about nutrition & vitamins for conception and pregnancy.