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It's really a no-brainer. But a new study has found that being more like men doesn't work for women. At least, not in STEM careers. According to newswise.com, even when women were more like men 20 to 40 years ago, it didn’t help them get a job in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, says study author Sharon Sassler, professor of policy analysis and management.   I can remember back to those days (though you wouldn't find me in a STEM career to save my life) when women wore blouses with bow ties and dark suits, tried to talk about sports, even scuttled their plans for marriage and kids, in an attempt to be taken seriously by the male executives in our lives.  We learned the hard way it didn't work.  And now, it seems, we're learning again. The study found that when women planned to delay marriage and limit the number of children they wanted – which would let them focus exclusively on work – they didn’t get the same employmen...

Want to get pregnant?  Don't shop so much. Really. Competition for social status may be an important driver of lower fertility in the modern world, suggests a new study, as reported by newswise.com. "The areas were we see the greatest declines in fertility are areas with modern labor markets that have intense competition for jobs and an overwhelming diversity of consumer goods available to signal well-being and social status," says senior author Paul Hooper, an anthropologist at Emory University. "The fact that many countries today have so much social inequality - which makes status competition more intense - may be an important part of the explanation." Across the globe, from the United States to the United Kingdom to India, fertility has gone down as inequality and the cost of achieving social status has gone up. "Our model shows that as competition becomes more focused on social climbing, as opposed to just putting food on the table, pe...

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...

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 ...

Seems people stopped having babies when the Great Recession struck.  But now they're back at it, according to Sabrina Tavernise at The New York Times. "The sharp decline in the country’s fertility rate during the economic downturn has come to an end, federal data show, as an improving economy encouraged Americans to resume having babies," she writes. But if I'm reading this right, it's not like our population grew in leaps and bounds. Instead, the number of babies born in the United States in 2012 remained flat, but it was the first time in five years that the number did not significantly decline, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, as Tavernise reports. "The leveling off capped a 9 percent decline in the fertility rate from 2007 to 2011, a drop that demographers say began after the recession took hold and Americans started feeling less secure about their economic circumstances," she notes. The decline “has come pret...

You'd think conscientiousness and openness would be wonderful personality features.  And most of the time, they are.  Just, not if you want to have a baby. A new study has found that: Conscientiousness decreased female fertility Openness decreased male fertility, and Extraversion raised fertility for both men and women According to medicalnewstoday.com, researchers saw a decline in producing children in neurotic (moody or emotional) men, but oddly, only for those born after 1957.  Maybe it was in the water. Some of it, for the men, may have something to do with waiting longer to have children.  Research has recently indicated that children born of men over age 50 are more likely to develop schizophrenia as young adults, concerning for us as my husband was 51 when our son was born.   The study, done in Norway, was part of an examination of falling birth rates.  But don't despair, if you're conscientious.  Chances ar...

Good news!   Infertility rates in this country are dropping!  They've gone from almost 9 percent of women in 1982 to 6 percent of women now. But fertility treatments have also doubled, according to the CDC. According to cbsnews.com, the CDC report found that "6 percent of married women aged 15 to 44, about 1.5 million women, were considered infertile at some point from 2006 through 2010."  But, that's down from 8.5 percent of women (2.4 million) in 1982. "When you look at this downward trend, it goes against the popular wisdom of people we all know," report author Anjani Chandra, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics, told USA Today , as noted by cbsnews.com. Age is thought to play a large role in infertility. Among married women without children, 25 percent of those aged 35 to 39 were infertile, as were 30 percent of those 40 to 44 years old. That's compared with between 7.3 percent and 9.1 percent of women under 34 ye...

Sad, but true.  Antioxidants won't make it easier to have a baby.  Cure cancer.  Or help you live longer. Studies for some time have shown that these elements are not the miracle drug we once thought they were -- though my husband (who doesn't believe in doctors, but then, he's a dentist) still gulps a handful of supplements every day and this most likely won't stop him. But according to a story at yahoo.com, a recent fertility study contradicted an earlier one that showed that partners of men who took antioxidants seemed to get pregnant more easily.  The new study, though scientists admitted it was of low quality, completely turned that treatment advice on its head. You partner can take all the antioxidants he wants but it's probably not going to get you pregnant. As someone who sought out every old wives' tale under the sun -- cut out diet soda (cyclamates), stop using the microwave, drink red raspberry leaf tea -- to get pregnant, I kno...

A recent study confirmed that what a man eats can definitely affect the quality -- and quantity -- of his sperm when a couple is trying to get pregnant. An article in The Toronto Sun reported last year that "those with the highest fat intake had a 43% lower total sperm count and 38% lower sperm concentration than men with the lowest fat intake."  Exactly what men ate mattered, according to the study.  Those who ate the most saturated fat had the lowest sperm counts. But a segment on "The Doctors" today noted that all is not lost.  Men with lower sperm counts can try taking Vitamin D, put lemon in their water (no joke), drink pomegranate juice, and yes, even eat oysters. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/14/diet-affects-sperm-count-study http://www.recapo.com/the-doctors/the-doctors-advice/the-drs-what-foods-help-increase-sperm-count-properly-cleaning-teeth/