Hot MedFax

It may seem pretty obvious but for years, fertility specialists suggested that couples refrain from too much sex to give sperm a chance to regenerate. Now a new study is showing the complete opposite.  According to newswise.com, sexual activity causes immune system changes that increase chances of conception. Here's how it works: sexual activity triggers physiological changes in the body that increase a woman’s chances of getting pregnant, even outside the window of ovulation. It's a common recommendation that partners trying to have a baby should engage in regular intercourse to increase the woman’s changes of getting pregnant -- even during so-called 'non-fertile' periods -- although it’s unclear how this works, researchers say. "This research is the first to show that the sexual activity may cause the body to promote types of immunity that support conception," says lead author Tierney Lorenz, a visiting research scientist at the Kinsey Insti...

Though they both happened long ago, they are still among two of the worst experiences of my life. I'm talking about miscarriages.  Now a new study is finding that most people don't know the first thing about them, and what causes them.  It's not stress.  It's not doing something wrong.  It's not even alcohol or smoking.  It's almost always genetic -- something wrong with the chromosomes in the fetus. And even though this may soothe, somewhat, the women who suffer them, we still suffer shame, guilt and heart-breaking sadness.  The worst part?  No one talks about it. I remember after finally becoming pregnant with my son, mentioning in passing to a salesperson that I'd had two miscarriages (I can't for the life of me remember why!), and this huge look of relief spread over his face.  "My wife had one!" he said.  You don't tell people because you feel like you are defective.  Your body let you down, couldn't do it, especially some...

Want to know how good a parent you'll be? Play with dolls. Not just any dolls but ones that having expectant parents role-play interacting with an infant using a doll can help predict which couples may be headed for co-parenting conflicts when their baby arrives, newswise.com reports. Researchers videotaped 182 couples in the third trimester of pregnancy while they played with a doll that they were told represented the baby they were about to have. Researchers analyzed how the couple interacted with each other around the doll. The couples were videotaped again nine months after the birth of their baby to see how they actually played together. Results showed that couples acted as similarly toward each other with the real baby as they did with the doll – in both positive and negative ways. “The extent to which couples support or undermine each other’s interactions with the doll predicts their co-parenting behavior a year later,” said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-a...

If you are ever thinking of becoming pregnant, you might not want to take the pill. That's because a new study has found that not only does it shrink your ovaries, it also reduces the number of eggs you will have for the rest of your life. According to bioscience.com, the birth control pill significantly affects ovarian reserve— or the number of immature eggs in a woman’s ovaries— which can be a predictor of future fertility. A team in Denmark, who reported this to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting last month, said that two markers for ovarian reserve are markedly suppressed after prolonged birth control pill use, and ovaries are also markedly shrunken after prolonged pill use. “During the last three years we have counseled 900 women, and 300 men, about their ability to conceive naturally,” team leader Kathrine Birch Petersen told Bioscience Technology via email. “The proportion of oral contraceptive users was 28 percent. We we...

You might want to reconsider what you're cleaning with. A new study has found that chemicals in certain cleaning products have led to reproductive problems in mice. According to newswise.com, Virginia Tech researchers who were using a disinfectant when handling mice have discovered that two active ingredients in it cause declines in mouse reproduction. Although the chemicals responsible for the declines are common in household cleaning products and disinfectants used in medical and food preparation settings, including hand sanitizers, academic scientists have never published a rigorous study, until now, on their safety or toxicity. “If these chemicals are toxic to humans, they could also be contributing to the decline in human fertility seen in recent decades, as well as the increased need for assistive reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization,” said Dr. Terry Hrubec, a research assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Patho...

What if you were trying to get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and suddenly had a greater than 50% chance of succeeding? It's not quite there yet, but a new study has found that using computer-automated, time‐lapse photography of embryos in the laboratory during IVF may improve embryo selection, potentially increasing the chances of pregnancy among women undergoing the procedure, according to newswise.com. As someone who went through this more than once, finally succeeding on the third, fourth and fifth tries (but only one live birth), it raises a real beacon of hope. In the past women were given (at least when I did it, 13 years ago) a 30% chance of success, based on the average woman in good health.  The good news is, it worked a lot of the time, especially for younger women.  But for women in their 40s like me, the success rate was far less impressive. Now labs may actually be able to use a device which records images of developing embryos during the ...

My son hasn't shown much interest in alcohol -- at least not yet (or to me!).  But a new study has found that you may be able to predict which of your children is going to binge drink in the future. Of course, genetics play a part.   And I may feel a little more nervous than most folks because alcoholism runs in my family. But the study found that genetics play only a small part.  Brain function and about 40 different other variables can also help scientists predict with about 70 percent accuracy which teens will become binge drinkers. When I was a young teen, a younger cousin used to go everywhere with her shampoo bottle.  Turns out it was really liquor.  Not sure if this is why but at the age of 15, she became pregnant, and was able to hide it till about her eighth month.  Her family thought she had just gained weight.  It was a sad coincidence that her baby was born with Down Syndrome, which had nothing to do with her lack of prenatal...

It's sad.  But families with an autistic child are about one-third less likely to have another child, according to newswise.com. "While it has been postulated that parents who have a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be reluctant to have more children, this is the first time that anyone has analyzed the question with hard numbers,” said Neil Risch, PhD, a UCSF professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and director of the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics.  The Web site notes that the study is the first to provide convincing statistical evidence that "reproductive stoppage exists and should be taken into account when calculating the risks for having a another child with ASD,” said Risch, who is senior author on the paper. “These findings have important implications for genetic counseling of affected families.” Overall, families whose first child had ASD were one-third less likely to have a second child than control families, the study found. F...

The experts are still out on whether wireless devices really do harm us, or that our iphones cause brain cancer. But now a new study has found that pregnant women may indeed be at risk, and their unborn babies, too. Newswise.com reports that an international group of doctors and scientific experts is joining with non-profit organizations today to urge pregnant women to limit their exposure to wireless radiation from cell phones and other devices by taking simple steps to protect themselves and their unborn children. Research has linked exposure to wireless radiation from cell phones during pregnancy to neurological and behavioral problems in offspring that resemble Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. The steps include: 1. Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body (e.g. in a pocket or bra). 2. Avoid holding any wireless device against your body when in use. 3. Use your cell phone on speaker setting or with an “air tube” headset. 4. Avoid usin...

You may not have known it (your husband would!) but you probably snored a lot when you were pregnant, if you also had high blood pressure.  And maybe something even worse. A new study says over 50% of hypertensive pregnant women have some kind of sleep disturbance. According to newswise.com, one in two hypertensive pregnant women who habitually snore may have unrecognized obstructive sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that can reduce blood oxygen levels during the night and that has been linked to serious health conditions, new University of Michigan-led research shows. One in four hypertensive pregnant women who don’t snore also unknowingly suffer from the sleeping disorder, the Web site reports. “We know that habitual snoring is linked with poor pregnancy outcomes for both mother and child, including increased risk of C-sections and smaller babies,” newswise quotes lead author Louise O’Brien, Ph.D., M.S., associate professor at U-M’s Sleep Disorders Center in the Depa...

I admit I did it.  Found out the sex of my baby.  But it took me so long to get pregnant, I wasn't interested in any surprises. Now a study has found that moms (and dads) who want to know the sex of their unborn baby are perfectionists, and "may be giving subtle clues about (their) views on proper gender roles," according to newswise.com.  The study found that women who choose not to learn their child’s sex may be more open to new experiences, and combine egalitarian views about the roles of men and women in society with conscientiousness. I've always thought of myself as a risk-taker, but this would prove otherwise.  After losing two pregnancies, I wanted to know everything about this baby -- the health of his heart, his other vital organs, the length of his fingers and toes, and how many.   My husband was more a nervous wreck than I, not sure he really wanted to have children at all. Expectant mothers who scored high on a test of parenting perfectio...

First they blamed the moms.  Then they blamed the vaccines.  Now research is showing that some cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may actually be environmentally-caused. The findings, according to newswise.com, "shed light on why older mothers are at increased risk for having children with ASD and could pave the way for more research into the role of environment on ASD."  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in March that one in 68 U.S. children has an ASD—a 30 percent rise from 1 in 88 two years ago. A significant number of people with an ASD have gene mutations that are responsible for their condition. But a number of studies—particularly those involving identical twins, in which one twin has ASD and the other does not—show that not all ASD cases arise from mutations, the Web site reports.  Other studies have shown that genes may only be responsible in half  the cases of ASD diagnosed, newswise notes.  Media ...

Women -- and men, too -- who are hoping to conceive may want to have their cholesterol checked.  A new study says that if a man or woman has high cholesterol levels, it will take longer. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance found in all cells  of the  body. About a third of American adults – 71 million – have high levels of low-density lipoprotein, or “bad” cholesterol, according to the  Centers for Disease  Control and Prevention, as newswise.com reports. Only one of every three adults with high LDL cholesterol has the condition under control. "In addition to raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, our findings suggest cholesterol may contribute to infertility,” newswise quotes one of the study’s authors, Enrique F. Schisterman, MS, PhD, of the National  Institutes of Health ’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Bethesda, MD. “Our results suggest prospective parents may want to have thei...

Something new to blame mothers for!  A new study has found that p oor-quality sleep during the third trimester of pregnancy can increase the odds of weight gain and metabolic abnormalities in offspring once they reach adulthood, according to newswise.com. By 24 weeks the sons of sleep-disturbed mothers weighed about 10 percent more than the sons of mice with uninterrupted sleep. “Disrupted sleep is a common problem during the final trimester of a pregnancy,” the Web site quotes study director, sleep specialist David Gozal, MD, the Herbert T Abelson professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago. “For some women, sleep fragmentation, especially sleep apnea, can be profound. We wanted to devise a system that enabled us to measure the potential impact of fragmented sleep on the fetus, which is uniquely susceptible so early in life.” The researchers interrupted sleep for half of the mice in the study during days 15 through 19 of pregnancy, the mouse equivalent of the thi...

It didn't happen with my husband (maybe because, 13 years ago, ultrasounds were milky and hard to see), but a new study has found that "s eeing their babies’ ultrasound images for the first time is a powerful moment for expectant fathers, and could hasten family bonding and provide an opportunity for promoting positive partnering and parenting," according to newswise.com. Today, with just about everything visible from your baby's nose to his toes, I'm sure it's a much more dramatic experience.  But when our son was in-utero, we could barely make out his head. (Even so, I have his 20-week ultrasound in a frame in our room and I feel happy every time I look at it.) It's all about being left out. “While all our fathers felt the mothers were receiving good care, about half of them felt excluded or ignored and wished that providers would offer them more explanation and opportunity to ask questions during the appointment,’’ says  Dr. Tova Walsh, a resea...

A while back I was intrigued by a new area of research that delved into what effect the environment of the womb had on a fetus.  It had an unusual name, fetal origins , and it was built around how the first nine months of a fetus' life -- and its interactions with its mother before it's born -- has a huge impact on its life. I didn't hear much more about it until today, when I came across a story at newswise.com about how hair from a newborn can tell a lot about what went on in the womb, while it was "hatching." " It can tell if a person recently used drugs or an athlete was doping. It can provide information about hormones and expose environmental toxins," the Web site reports. "It  can also reveal the womb environment in which an infant formed." Why care?  As I found out earlier, a mother's uterus affects which genes are turned on in the fetus, and how the first nine months of your life shape the rest of it is now becoming more an...

I remember when I was trying to get pregnant being told by everyone that all I had to do was relax.  That alone stressed me out.  Every procedure I failed, I'd tell myself it was because I didn't relax enough.  Really great for the cortisol level. Now it's turning out that stressing out and fertility are linked. Well, infertility.  A new study has found, according to Deborah Netburn at The Los Angles Times, that s tressed out women do have more difficulty getting pregnant than women with less stress, according to a new study.  In fact, 29 percent more, Fox news reports. This, of course, contradicts earlier studies that say they don't! From 2005 to 2009, researchers followed 401 reproductively healthy couples who were trying to get pregnant.  Over a period of 12 months, researchers recorded each couple’s time-to-pregnancy and observed that by five to six months into the study, the couples who had yet to conceive were those with the highest levels of c...

Be very careful when you're pregnant not to get an infection.  A new study has found that moms-to-be who do are more likely to have the infection impair their fetuses' neurological functions, resulting in autism or schizophrenia. According to newswise.com, Johns Hopkins researchers report that fetal mice — especially males — show signs of brain damage that lasts into their adulthood when they are exposed in the womb to a maternal immune system kicked into high gear by a serious infection or other malady. The findings suggest that some neurologic diseases in humans could be similarly rooted in prenatal exposure to inflammatory immune responses. "The investigators say that the part of the brain responsible for memory and spatial navigation (the hippocampus) was smaller over the long term in the male offspring exposed to the overactive immune system in the womb," the Web site notes. The males also had fewer nerve cells in their brains and their brains contained a ty...

Maybe it was all those low-fat yogurts.  Or the diet soda.  Or maybe just the cutting out the M&Ms.  Maybe this explains why my son (who, granted was born at 8.15 pounds) now is considered underweight, at 12. A new study has found that bad (or good) eating habits start in the womb. According to Kristin Wartman at the NYT, "Babies born to mothers who eat a diverse and varied diet while pregnant and breast-feeding are more open to a wide range of flavors. They’ve also found that babies who follow that diet after weaning carry those preferences into childhood and adulthood. Researchers believe that the taste preferences that develop at crucial periods in infancy have lasting effects for life." So my trying not to gain too much weight in pregnancy resulted in my skinny son? Not so sure.  I did eat a wide variety of foods when I was pregnant.  But why does Phillip eat only white foods, to this day?  Pasta.  Rice.  Noodles.  Did I...

It shouldn't be a surprise but girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier these days, and experts put it down to the rising tide of obesity. According to Michelle Healy at USA Today, "The start of puberty (determined by a specific stage of breast development) was at a median age of 9.7 years old in white, non-Hispanic girls, 4 months earlier than in a landmark 1997 study that first documented early puberty in U.S. girls." Healy notes that the new study followed 1,200 girls (enrolled at ages 6 to 8) over seven years, finding that "blacks continue to develop earlier than whites, reaching puberty at a median age of 8.8, vs. 9.3 years for Hispanics and 9.7 for Asians."  "BMI supplants race as the No. 1 factor" in the new analysis, Healy quotes lead author Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Though some minorities are reaching puberty earlier, the number one salient fact in all races is that girls ar...