Fertility
Hundreds of Australians die every year because of overcrowded hospitals. Children with disabilities struggle to get the help and equipment they need. Public schools are under-resourced. We don’t have a magic uber-highway to zip us around the country at the speed of sound.
And yet we’re spending taxpayer’s cash on IVF for women in their 50s. Riddle me that.
The news that a 60-year-old gave birth is the sort of thing that sees some people shudder while others are all high-fives and ‘you go girlfriend’ excited.
Continue reading "An age-old question on taxpayer funding for IVF" »
Overnight news broke Swedish doctors have made a startling breakthrough in fertility treatment, by transplanting the functioning wombs of two women into their own adult daughters.
They’ll now give the new uteruses a year to settle in before trying for pregnancies with IVF. It’s an incredible medical development, that will give some infertile women hope they will one day become biological mothers.
The clinical director of women’s health at Westmead Hospital in Sydney Dr Andrew Pesce told ABC radio this morning: “It’s obviously emotionally a much more powerful and strong bond and experience if the woman carries the baby herself. I think it’s not possible to anticipate yet that such women could give birth naturally.”
Continue reading "When should a doctor say “you just can’t have a baby”?" »
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Miss Nae says:
It’s often “easier”** and cheaper to put yourself through IVF than the adoption process whether local or international. So you can all shut up about those children waiting to be adopted - they don’t exist. A significant number of countries will no longer adopt outside of the country. ** Nothing… Read more »
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Super D says:
If they can transplant a working womb into a woman what’s to stop them transplanting one into a man? Read more »
The New York Times ran an article recently with the rather fascinating headline: “Eager for Grandchildren, and Wanting Daughters’ Eggs in Freezer”.
The front-page story was about the growing phenomenon of American parents helping their single daughters to freeze their eggs for later use – at a cost of anywhere between $A 7,500 and $17,000. Why? Well, as 61-year-old Candice Kramer put it: “By the time Allison was 35, I felt the clock was tick-tick-ticking. I viewed it as opening up an opportunity for her.”
Call it a grandchild insurance policy. With women increasingly deferring babies until later in life, America’s would-be grandparents are investing in hope.
Continue reading "Ladies, don’t put all your eggs in a frozen basket" »
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C says:
@M No, it isn’t. But you have to remember that when it comes to men, the golden rule is: Money, Looks, Personality; pick two. Australian women seem to be focused solely on finding men with all three, and then some. Those kind of blokes are one in a thousand, and… Read more »
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Inky says:
How dare those evil men refuse to father children, despite their own wishes! How dare they! Hey, Julia? Bite me. No, seirously. I have no wish to be a father and doubt this’ll change with time. I don’t think I’d make a particularly good one and really don’t want to… Read more »
According to the latest app on my iPhone I have seven years, six months, 19 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes and 31 seconds left to have any more babies. Wait, 21 seconds. No, 5 seconds. Aghhhhhh.
Count down clocks are by definition a torment. According to deathclock.com I’m set to expire on Anzac Day in 2077, which will make me 101. Only time will tell if that is good news or bad news.
Yes these things are arbitrary, based on sweeping generalisations, and fail to take myriad factors into account. But some times sweeping generalisations are made for a reason.
Continue reading "If you ignore this ticking clock it might blow up" »
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HeatherG says:
I’m 41 and my eldest is almost 22 (yes, I married young—and no, it wasn’t because I fell pregnant!). He left home early. My 20 year-old is still at home and I’m happy to have him here while he finishes his studies, so long as he pays his share of… Read more »
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M says:
I’d love to see what the economy would look like (retail in particular) if house prices were anywhere near affordable. Read more »
A couple of years back I met a woman who had had quadruplets through an IVF program 24 years ago. I was delighted to find that all four babies were now healthy young people but amazed to find out that I had actually conducted the embryo transfer and had implanted all four embryos inside her womb.
IVF has certainly changed over the past 30 years in that things that were acceptable then are no longer practiced today – like implanting multiple embryos.
The most significant change over the past 30 years has been the improvement in IVF success rates; the clinic at which I work rarely implants more than one embryo and has a multiple pregnancy rate below 4 per cent, as compared to 40 per cent 25 years ago
Continue reading "There are multiple advances in IVF for a single reason" »
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emotional says:
Phil do you have children? Can you naturally have children? Because I find those negative comments normally come from someone whom can have children with no help. And you have no Idea what people go through to have this child I recently found out that I cant have children as… Read more »
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Mitchell Meek says:
The beauty of this medical technology is that people are able to experience the joy of raising a family even when their own genetic faults or medical conditions complicate or remove naturally occurring processes. It’s truly wonderful that the scientific research and endeavour of so many people can return such… Read more »
Fertility is a precious commodity for the modern woman. Greater opportunities, education and choice, along with the difficulties of finding the right partner can make it easy to delay falling pregnant. Being able to stow eggs away for the “right time” is an alluring prospect.
In this context, a recent discovery by Dr Jonathan Tilly of Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital offers massive temptation. The American scientist has found that ovaries of young women harbour very rare stem cells capable of producing new eggs.
He made the discovery after an initial study found that stem cells in the ovaries of adult mice could give rise to viable eggs. This means that although women are born with a finite number of eggs, they now have more chances to fall pregnant later in life. But it’s also a risk of epic proportions.
Continue reading "Scrambled science or an ovulation revolution?" »
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Nyx says:
@ Jane2 ...I wasn’t a change of life baby (and I’m actually quite offended by that). I was an accident. My mother and father had already had 8 children (and 8 miscarriages). Both my sisters were carrying children at the same time my mother was pregnant with me. In no… Read more »
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Steve M says:
Lol, well isnt that a bigoted view. Especially when considered against your posts on the gay parents blog on this same website. Surely a grey haired parent is better than an abusive gay parent? How intolerant lol. Read more »
There is no ‘right’ to have a child. This seems a callous thing to say, but wrapping any conversation about children up in cuddly pink fleece-lined jumpsuits doesn’t help what has to be a serious policy debate.
While it must be devastating for couples who, for whatever reason, are unable to conceive, there are limits to society’s obligations to help them. Like most controversial health decisions, this is a tale of clashing rights and finite resources.
Last year the Federal Government made changes to the Medicare Safety Net, effectively capping the amount they would pay out for assisted reproductive treatments.
Continue reading "I’m sorry, but society doesn’t owe you a child" »
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Grover Bodner says:
Thanks for revealing your ideas here. The other issue is that each time a problem appears with a laptop or computer motherboard, people should not take the risk connected with repairing that themselves because if it is not done right it can lead to irreparable damage to the entire laptop.… Read more »
Somewhere yesterday in rural India, the world’s 7 billionth person was born. This event, which should be a cause for celebration, will undoubtedly provoke the population prophets of doom to predict impending catastrophe.
Last night, Sydney was lucky enough to host the patriarch of the prophets, Professor Paul Ehrlich, who gave an address at UNSW on ‘Population, Environment, and the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere’.
Professor Ehrlich made his name at a time of population hysteria, the age of Logan’s Run, the pill and the birth of China’s one-child policy. He is most famous for his 1968 work, The Population Bomb, which predicted immense social upheaval, massive resource shortages and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people from starvation due to a “population explosion”.
Continue reading "The Earth needs more people. 7 billion isn’t enough" »
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Recovered Christian says:
I can assure you, as someone who had the misfortune to attend the same misguided ultra-Conservative Catholic school as the author, that he is indeed spruiking such views from a staunch Christian background. We were taught this rubbish in Geography (despite all the science to the contrary) by a similarly… Read more »
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Realist says:
I think this is a great article. Declining fertility is causing major economic problems in developed countries. Eg how to pay the rising cost of health care with a declining working population. Only answer is too much immigration which can lead to other social problems. I love the way the… Read more »
Pregnancy is a lovely thing. Lovely, obviously, because it usually produces a baby, but also because it keeps you warm, excuses cake consumption and ensures you score a seat on the bus.
It also makes everyone smile and ask pleasant questions, which is doubly nice when you’ve had your head down the loo half the morning.
But, for some, the sight of an expectant mum is torture. They may enthuse with the rest of us, but behind the plastered smile, they’re splintering into a million unspilt tears. Because there’s no keener reminder of what you don’t have than someone else’s swollen belly.
Continue reading "Spare a thought for those who can’t have kids" »
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Anne Stocks says:
A Neighbour who I care very much for, has not been coping for some time and even though I tried to help her but with my disability I was limited, there was only so much I could do and because she was not meeting all her Children’s needs the Authorities… Read more »
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Julie says:
There is a man in my church who has worked in the Children’s ministry for as long as I can remember. His wife is also involved in sunday school, but Gary is in every aspect of children’s ministry available. I just came to the realization a few years ago, that… Read more »
Here’s a sobering little fact; Gen X women face a fertility crisis greater than any generation before them.
After receiving terrible advice from scores of feminists as well as their baby boomer mums, many thought it wise to delay motherhood for the sake of their careers.
Unfortunately your biological clock doesn’t care about your career, what car you drive or what your investment portfolio looks like.
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Sid says:
DG - we have far less power than we think, one day you will realise this. Read more »
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Sid says:
Some of you have no comprehension of the abuse some children suffer, and why this just turns them away from having their own children, knowing that they cannot keep them safe, no matter what you may like to think. Have a heart and realise some people suffer from an early… Read more »
Not everyone wants to have children – in fact according to some recent research conducted by Schering Plough, about 24% of women surveyed said they don’t want to have children.
For the 76% who do, this survey highlighted the barriers faced by women in 2009 that affect their decisions about children.
In this group, almost two thirds (62%) of Gen Y women, those aged 18 – 29, say they will delay having kids now as they are concerned about the cost.
Continue reading "Why women don’t want, want and can’t have kids" »
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Joan Bennett says:
Whenever someone asks a happily childfree person why they don’t have children, suggest using the following replies: 1. I am so fulfilled, I would hate to do anything that might spoil that; or 2. I would never be so selfish to bring a child into this world. Read more »
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Jane says:
Collette, you are very wise for your age. Eveything you have written I agree with 100%. I am now 43, so my childbearing years are way behind me. Thank goodness because I would have ended up a single mother, I had a miscarage when I was 20 & even though… Read more »
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