Pride Angel

Join some of Britains leading experts in fertility, surrogacy, adoption and fostering along with alternative families.

When?
Saturday 8th June 9:30am-5:00pm
The show is being held at the:

Where?
Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel
24 26 Newport Road
Cardiff
CF24 0DD

There will be a variety of seminars taking place throughout the day to include:

Seminars
10:30 Surrogacy
11:20 Adoption and fostering
12:00 IVF in Wales
13:00 HFEA
13:50 Single mothers by choice
14:40 Fertility for the over 40s
15:30 Fertility treatment - donor sperm
16:20 Stonewall - different families - same love

Pride Angel are the leading parenting connection website, for sperm donors and co-parenting. They will be exhibiting at the show. Please feel free to come and speak to Pride Angel to discuss your gay and lesbian parenting options.

Article: 8th June 2013 www.prideangel.com

Looking for a sperm donor or co-parent? Gay, lesbian, straight or single? visit Pride Angel

Did you use assisted reproduction procedures (surrogacy or donor insemination)?

Researchers at the Universities of Cambridge, Paris and Amsterdam are looking for lesbian, gay and heterosexual couples based in the UK, France or Holland, who used donor insemination or surrogacy to conceive their child.

The New Parents Study is examining the development of relationships between parents and their babies during the first year of life.

As part of the New Parents Study we will visit you once at your home, when your baby is 4 months old. Then, when your baby is 12 months old, you will come to see us. During these visits we will get to see your baby develop through videoing interactions with you, a short interview and questionnaires.

For more information about this study, please go to www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/adprg/new-parents-study or contact us at infancy@hermes.cam.ac.uk

Contact us at Pride Angel for more information.

Article: 4th June 2013 by Dr Kate Ellis-Davies
Research Associate
Applied Developmental Psychology Research Group
University of Cambridge

Read more about gay and lesbian parenting at www.prideangel.com

A new app from the co-founder of PayPal helps couples achieve a successful pregnancy by notifying them via their smartphones when they are most likely to conceive, and offering handy tips about buying presents and dressing for the occasion.

The Glow app processes data entered by a woman trying to become pregnant, including details of her menstrual cycle and body temperature, and produces a colour-coded chart that highlights opportune moments in the month for baby-making.

Some may find it odd to take such intimate instructions from their mobile, but billionaire Ukrainian entrepeneur Max Levchin, who co-founded the PayPal digital payment platform in 1998, believes the app gives a novel edge to what can become an "unpleasurable routine" for struggling couples.

"Many of the reasons why people find it difficult, when they’re keeping on the clock, is because it becomes unpleasurable when it’s a routine,” he told technology website All Things D.

Mr Levchin is a father-of-two who conceived his children without difficulties, but was inspired to create the Glow app after hearing about friends' experiences with IVF.

"We have people close to us that have gone through multiple IVF trials," he said, "and we’ve heard them say, ‘We’re not going to put my wife’s body through this anymore.’"

In 2011, almost 14,000 British women became pregnant through IVF, as the average age when women give birth in the West continues to rise and couples who struggle with fertility issues are increasingly able to conceive with artificial help. The Glow app is still in development, but when launched will be available for iPhone.

Article: 31st May 2013 www.telegraph.co.uk

Read more about pregnancy fertility monitors at www.prideangel.com

A court in the state of Victoria, Australia, has allowed a previously convicted sex offender and his partner to have access to IVF treatment. ABY, a former teacher's aide, was convicted in 2009 of sexual offences against a 16-year old girl with learning difficulties who was under his care. He received a custodial sentence, with part of it suspended, and was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 15 years. He was released from prison in 2010 having served one year of the sentence.

Shortly after his release, ABY and his partner, ABZ, made an application for IVF treatment, but it was initially refused (reported in BioNews 615). Under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, if a criminal record check reveals that charges have been proven against a women or her partner for a sexual offence, there is a presumption against providing treatment. Their application was, however, allowed on appeal.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) came to hear to case again after it the case was appealed up to the Court of Appeal, which sent it back to the VCAT last year saying the wrong legal test had been used in the previous decision to allow the couple access to treatment (reported in BioNews 679). The Court of Appeal had said the VCAT should look at the best interests of any resulting child, and had focused too heavily on the risks of reoffending.

After hearing the case again in March 2013, the VCAT ruled that there was no barrier to IVF treatment. It said: 'After considering all of the potential risk factors together with the mitigating and protective factors, we have decided that there is no barrier to treatment'. The court heard evidence that ABY had undergone a treatment program for sex offenders and had greater insight into his past conduct, acknowledging the harm caused to the victim. It also found that ABY and ABZ were happily married and ABY's alcohol consumption, which was considered a possible risk factor, had reduced to moderate levels. Furthermore, the court said that ABY and ABZ have an extensive and supportive family network.

It said: 'We conclude that to the extent we have found that there are identifiable or established risk factors, that there is no real risk of harm to a child to be born to ABY and ABZ as should constitute a barrier to treatment'.

Article: 28th May 2013 http://www.bionews.org.uk/

Read more about IVF and sperm donation at www.prideangel.com

Thousands of infertile couples could benefit from a new IVF procedure that can dramatically improve the success rate of having a baby through artificial reproduction.

Scientists believe they can double or even triple the proportion of healthy babies born as a result fertility treatment with a relatively simple technique that takes a series of time-lapse photographs of the developing IVF embryos.

On average only about 24 per cent of IVF embryos implanted into women in the UK lead to live births but the researchers believe this could be increased to 78 per cent using the new technique for selecting the best embryos.

I believe it is the most exciting breakthrough we've had in probably 30 years,” said Professor Simon Fishel, managing director of the CARE Fertility Group, where the technique was developed.

“Every IVF practice in the world is unintentionally and unwittingly putting back into the womb unviable embryos that don't make babies,” Professor Fishel said. “We hope to see a paradigm shift in terms of IVF. It's a game changer for everybody to have such an uplift in live birth rates. This is the beginning of something revelatory,” he said

Each year, licensed clinics in Britain carry out about 60,000 IVF treatments but most of them end in failure, causing immense emotional upset to couples, many of whom have paid between £5,000 and £10,000 for each treatment cycle.

The new procedure, which costs £750, identifies the best embryos to be implanted into the womb based on the time it has taken to develop between two key stages in the early life-cycle of the embryo.

Thousands of time-lapse pictures are taken during the first few days of an IVF embryo's life and these are used to identify the time between the first appearance of the fluid-filled cavity, called the blastula, and the final moment before the embryo “hatches” from its protective shell.

Scientists have discovered that when this period lasts longer than about six hours, the IVF embryo is likely to be carrying an abnormal number of chromosomes, called aneuploidy, which will lead to a failure of the pregnancy.

A preliminary study, published in the journal Reproductive Medicine Online and based on a retrospective analysis of 88 IVF embryos of 69 couples, found that the time-lapse technique could have improved the success rate of life births in this particular group of patients from 39 per cent to 61 per cent.

Even better success rates can be expected once the procedure is refined and applied to the wider population of infertile couples seeking IVF treatment, Professor Fishel said.

“Our work has shown that we can easily classify embryos into low or high risk of being chromosomally abnormal. This is important because in itself this is the largest single cause of IVF failure and miscarriage,” he said. “The beauty of this technology is that the information is provided by a non-invasive process. So far we have seen a 56 per cent uplift compared to conventional technology, giving our patients the equivalent to a 78 per cent live-birth rate,” he added.

Normally, IVF embryos in an incubator are checked manually each day by embryologists but the time-lapse cameras are able to do this automatically by taking pictures every 10 minutes without interfering with embryo development, said Alison Campbell, embryology director at Care Fertility in Nottingham, who developed the computer algorithm controlling the analysis.

“With time-lapse we have the ability to view more than 5,000 images over the same time period to observe and measure more closely each stage of division and growth. As a result of continuous monitoring we have demonstrated that delays at defined points indicate abnormal development,” Ms Campbell said.

Martin Johnson, a fertility expert and editor of the journal where the work is published, said further “prospective” studies comparing the technique to existing methods of embryo selection are still needed before the procedure is recommended as standard treatment. “There are caveats with this research….and for these reasons we have to be cautious,” he said.

Sue Avery, director of Birmingham Women's Fertility Centre, said: “Unfortunately the study does not compare this exciting new approach with standard practise in embryology in which embryologists already look for the best embryos to place in the womb. Until the new technique is compared to current practise we cannot know whether different embryos are being chosen.”

Egg timing: Key stages

The developing embryo (image one, above) goes through two key stages when the fluid-filled cavity or “blastula” first forms (image two) and when the blastula is fully formed before the embryo “hatches” (image three).

The time between the two is used to judge whether the embryo is viable, with no defects in chromosome numbers. If the period is longer than six hours, the embryo is at high risk of abnormal chromosomes, which will inevitably lead to complications. Time-lapse photographs can indicate which embryos have a shorter time-period between these two points, and so which embryos are best for implantation into the womb.

Article: 17th May 2013 www.independent.co.uk

Read more about IVF and alternatives to IVF at www.prideangel.com

The transfer of one pre-screened embryo during IVF leads to birth rates equivalent to transferring two unscreened embryos, indicates new research from the USA.

Preliminary results presented at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Annual Clinical Meeting revealed that single embryo transfer combined with preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) resulted in fewer twin pregnancies and better health outcomes for both mother and child.

'Single embryo transfer with comprehensive chromosome screening has the potential to be paradigm-shifting and revolutionary in the world of IVF', explained lead researcher Dr Eric Forman, of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey (RMANJ) at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 'Patients can do single embryo transfer and maintain excellent delivery rates while not taking on the treatment-related risk of multiples', he added.

Infertility treatment currently accounts for 18 percent of twin deliveries in the USA. However, multiple pregnancies carry increased health risks to the mother and child.

In the study 175 women aged 43 or younger received either a single pre-screened chromosomally normal embryo or two unscreened embryos. Results so far indicate equivalent pregnancy rates in the two groups. No twins resulted from single embryo transfers whereas 53 percent of double embryo transfers led to multiple pregnancies.

At present only ten percent of women in the USA opt for an elective single embryo transfer. Dr Forman noted that most women choose to have multiple embryos transferred because they feel that this improves their chances of becoming pregnant. However, as more people become aware of the success rates of single embryo transfer, its popularity as a treatment option may increase.

'The technology exists today to make single embryo transfer the standard of care across age groups, eliminating the vast majority of complications stemming from IVF, while maintaining excellent delivery rates for couples who have struggled with infertility', explained Dr Forman.

PGS adds an extra cost to fertility treatment in the USA and research is ongoing at RMANJ to establish whether in the USA this cost is offset by the reduced healthcare burden associated with lower risk singleton pregnancies.

Article: 13th May 2013 www.bionews.org.uk

Read more about IVF and artificial insemination at www.prideangel.com

"What should I eat in order to boost my fertility?" It's one of the first questions asked by many women hoping to get pregnant:

A new study offers up one possible answer, claiming that women who ate a diet rich in protein and low in carbohydrates while undergoing in vitro fertilization had higher pregnancy rates than those whose ratio of protein to carbs was the inverse.

But the findings, while provocative, are highly preliminary.

"Protein is essential for good quality embryos and better egg quality, it turns out," study researcher Dr. Jeffrey Russell, director of the Delaware Institute for Reproductive Medicine, said in a statement. His research was released at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' annual clinical meeting in New Orleans on Monday.

Patients whose protein intake represented 25 percent or more of their daily diet, and whose carbohydrate intake was 40 percent or less, had pregnancy rates four times higher than those who ate less protein and more carbs while undergoing in vitro fertilization (the joining of a woman's egg and a man's sperm in a laboratory before transferring the resulting embryo to her womb).

Researchers asked 120 women undergoing IVF to keep a three-day nutritional journal before they had an embryo transfer. Forty eight women had an average daily protein intake greater than 25 percent, while 72 had an average intake under 25 percent. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is generally recommended that people get between 10 and 35 percent of their daily calories from protein.)

There were no differences in body mass index (a measure of weight relative to height) between the two groups, and because of that, the researchers concluded that improving fertility may be linked to specific nutritional components in a woman's diet, more than to her overall BMI.

But Dr. Kathy Hoeger, Director of the Strong Fertility Center at the University of Rochester, N.Y., said that other factors might have affected the outcomes among the high-protein, low-carb group. Hoeger did not work on the new study.

"We don't have enough information about other factors," she told The Huffington Post.

"The question about high protein, low carb is still very uncertain with regard to fertility," Hoeger added, explaining that good scientific research on the links between diet and fertility is scant. Much of what is known has been extrapolated from preliminary animal studies, and the mechanisms that link nutrition and egg quality are not well understood.

But the desire for more information is there, evident in the numerous books, blog posts and articles on the topic. "As a practicing fertility doctor, probably the first question every one asks me is, 'What should I be eating?'" Hoeger said. "Clearly this is something on people's minds."

Perhaps the most scientifically rigorous information available comes from a 2007 study, led by researchers at Harvard University, that used data from more than 18,000 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, one of the longest-running investigations into women's health in the U.S. Those findings were detailed in the much-hyped book "The Fertility Diet," which offered dietary guidelines for preventing and reversing ovulatory infertility (but not infertility resulting from issues like blocked fallopian tubes).

According to the Harvard researchers, women should avoid trans fats and focus on the quality of the carbohydrates they eat, opting for fiber-rich foods and avoiding simple sugars rather than restricting the quantity of carbs. Researchers also found that women who had more full-fat dairy products in their diets were less likely to have problems getting pregnant than those who opted for skim or low-fat options.

Article: 6th May 2013 www.huffingtonpost.com

Read more about nutrition and boosting fertiliy at www.prideangel.com

Ask Janis Hetherington what kind of mother she is and she replies, without hesitation, ‘unconventional’. 'I’m not a “mummy” person at all,’ she says. ‘But I’m a brilliant father. I had to be both, so parenthood was quite schizophrenic in lots of ways.’ In 1972, Janis, now 66, made history as the first British lesbian to have a child by artificial insemination using sperm from a donor.

Her son Nick, 41, now a happily married screenwriter living in New York, has the unique distinction of being the first child in this country to grow up with same-sex parents — a revolutionary concept at the time of his birth in 1972. Born into a family which consisted of his mother Janis and her partner Judy, who had a young daughter of her own, Nick was nine months old when Judy died of a heart attack, aged 30. He was two when Janis met her current partner, Barbara, who became his second ‘Mum’.

Today, same-sex parenting is more or less accepted in Western society, but for Janis and Nick it was a sometimes difficult experience, and it is only now they feel comfortable enough to acknowledge the fault lines in their relationship. Janis says: ‘It felt wonderful to be a pioneer, but I was incredibly lonely because I was the first. People who opposed what I was doing waited for me to fail, so perhaps I was unable to enjoy motherhood in the way I might have liked. ‘Knowing what I know now, though, I would still have gone ahead with it.’

Dressed in a waistcoat and suit, her grey hair scraped back into a bun, Janis could easily pass for a country gent as she stokes the log fire in her 17th-century Oxfordshire house. In the kitchen, however, her feminine side flourishes. A brilliant cook, she shares recipes and doles out home-made chutney.

The overall impression is of intellectualism underpinned by a vulnerability borne from a lifetime of being judged — not only by those morally opposed to her choices, but by her own son. Today, Janis and Nick agree they share ‘an amazing bond’ — but it wasn’t always so. As an angry young man, he found her wanting.

When Nick first moved to America 20 years ago, he didn’t speak to Janis for two years because their relationship was so strained. It took ten years for them to mend fences. By comparison with his childhood, his adult life looks conventional. He married Soo Kim, 42, a TV producer, in the Caribbean two years ago, and they hope to have a child soon.

Read more....

Article: 5th March 2013 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about lesbian parenting and finding a sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

VietNamNet Bridge – Out of each 100 couples, 8 are sterile. The rate of secondary infertility caused by inflammation and abortions is increasing rapidly. This is one of the reasons that makes Vietnam face a downward trend in childbirth in the near future, experts have warned.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tan, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Population and Family Planning, said the findings of the Central Obstetrics Hospital in conjunction with the Medical University of Hanoi in 2012 on more than 14,000 couples in eight ecological regions across the country, shows that infertility rate is 7.7 percent, including 3.9 percent of primary infertility and 3.8 percent of secondary infertility.

Another study of the Military Medical Academy in 2011 with over 9,300 couples releases other numbers: Nearly 3.2 percent of couples are infertile, in which 38 percent of the couples having troubles from women, men 40 percent, and both 10.

In fact, there is no comprehensive study on infertility in Vietnam. Experts have warned that infertility, particularly secondary infertility, is increasing and it is associated with inflammatory factors and abortion. To demonstrate this, a doctor from the Central Obstetrics Hospital, said 10 years ago, only about 2-3 couples came to the hospital for infertility treatment. Today, the figure is up to 50-60 couples per week.

Tan said the General Department of Population and Family Planning would propose measures to assist infertile couples, helping them access to good health services. Tan said that many countries succeeded in reducing fertility, including Vietnam, but no one is successful in increasing fertility.

In Vietnam, a downward trend is evident. The data shows that the average number of children born by each woman of child-bearing age has reduced from 6.3 in 1961 to 2 in 2010 and is expected to fall to 1.78 in 2020.

In addition to high rates of infertility and abortion, the birth decline is caused by economic, social factors, with fiercer competition in the living environment. In addition, the value of human life has changed: Many people want to enjoy life and marry late; the number of people living alone is higher. The most important reason is the effectiveness of policies to reduce the country's birth in recent time.

The head of the General Department of Population and Family Planning - Duong Quoc Trong - said, due to declining birth rates and rising life expectancy, the population structure of Vietnam has changed. Lessons from countries in the region in coping with declining birth will be very useful for Vietnam.

Article: 31st March 2013 www.english.vietnamnet.vn

Read more about helping infertility at www.prideangel.com

A key group representing fertility specialists in the U.S. has shifted its messaging and now says that healthy women over the age of 50 should not be discouraged from trying to become pregnant using donor eggs or embryos.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has long said that women older than 50 should be "discouraged" from seeking fertility treatments. But new guidelines, published this month in the Journal of Fertility and Sterility, reverse that stance. The group now says women between 50 and 55 who are healthy and "well prepared" for child rearing should be allowed to receive donated eggs and embryos.

“The Committee believes that achieving a pregnancy through egg donation after age 50 is not such a significant departure from other currently accepted fertility treatments as to be considered ethically inappropriate in postmenopausal women,” the group says in the paper. For most women over 50, pregnancy is not an option, since the average of menopause is 52. While most women wouldn’t even want to become pregnant after that age, some do, and the ASRM says there is no reason why these women can’t raise children, as many already do as grandparents.

“There is, therefore, no reason to assume that society will be harmed by allowing older individuals to procreate, or that older women and their partners lack the physical and psychological stamina for raising children,” the ASRM says in its paper. “Also, because older men may father children, denying women a successful alternative for reproduction at ages equivalent to men is prejudicial.”

Nonetheless, the ASRM notes there are physical risks to becoming pregnant after 50. Dr. Tom Hannam of Toronto’s Hannam Fertility Centre explains that it’s not the conception process that’s risky; in fact, that stage is fairly simple. The prospective mother takes hormone pills for a few days to build up her uterine lining and then the fertilized embryo is transferred to her uterus in a simple in-office procedure.

But it’s the pregnancy itself that can be difficult, Hannam says. “The risks from the conception are not that high. It’s the complications-risk during the pregnancy that can be concerning,” he told CTV New Channel. “It’s clear that as women age, the health concerns that women have over the age of 50 are more likely to be amplified during pregnancy.”

Those concerns include the risk of hypertension, gestational diabetes and the need for caesarean section. Studies on the small number of women who have achieved pregnancy after 50 suggest all these risks rise for older mothers. Hannam says it would have to be up to a fertility specialist to decide if a patient over 50 is fit enough for pregnancy.

“Ultimately, it has to be individualized. And when we look to women over 50, one would have to be very careful indeed,” he says. While the ASRM guidelines are meant for U.S. fertility specialists, Hannam says they will affect Canadian women too. That’s because since 2004, it’s been illegal to offer egg donors financial compensation in Canada, so the vast majority of egg donation takes place in clinics in the U.S.

“Because it’s illegal to pay a woman for her eggs, most women who want to use donor eggs are going to the U.S.,” Hannam says. But he says the guidelines will also help doctors like him in Canada because they give him some literature to refer to patients who are considering pregnancy after menopause. “I’m glad there are articulated limits in the U.S. It’s going to help people make choices,” he said.

Article: 28th March 2013 www.ctvnews.ca

Read more about egg donation and finding an egg donor at www.prideangel.com