SpainFertility

The Public Health system of Andalucia, Spain, will allow fertility treatments on single mothers. The Junta has confirmed that women will be able to receive this type of treatments regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.

Maria Jesus Montero, the Public Health system advisor, said that this has not yet been regulated in any other community in spain and that the demand is so high that they are trying to satisfy it. Every year, about five hundred single women request the treatment and, up to now, the ones that were not in a relationship or with a partner could not be assisted. The only ones accepted were women with fertility problems.

Current Spanish law 14/2006 indicates that women over 18 and in working conditions can have free fertility treatments no matter their sexual orientation or if they are in a relationship or not. The problem is that the communities are not obliged to give treatment, based on the fact that several single women that request the treatments are actually fertile and do not have any health issues regarding their conceiving capacities.

Montero said that they will make sure that women who have no fertility issues but are not in a relationship can be assisted in treatments, and that they will guarantee flexibility of health centres, the way they do it in the Reina Sofia clinic in Cordoba, that is currently assisting single women with fertility treatments without conditions. For Montero, it is unfair that women are treated or not depending on which doctor or clinic assists them, when they should equally assist any woman that is over eighteen and in conditions to work.

According to Pilar Hernández Peces, vicepresident of the Madres Solteras por Elección association, this is a big step forward regarding this issue. She said that “we know these treatments are made in several public hospitals, but there is little general knowledge about it and, in the end, is all up to the doctors.” The waiting times are also very long, which discourages women from wanting to have babies.

Via | ElPais

A study made by Australian scientists discovered that vitamins and antioxidant pills can increase men´s fertility. The study showed that fertility was doubled after giving the men a pilled called Menevit. The research involved 60 couples: 17 of them conceived after taking the pill, while only 4 had family after taking placebo.

The pill in question has a combination of vitamin C, E, folic acid, garlic oil, lycopene and zinc. These ingredients protect sperm from being damaged, in most cases due to venereal infections or smoking.

The conductors of the research said that the pill makes men feel better about their role in the fertility process, while their wifes go through IVF. They feel they accompany their partners more in this way, since they will also be taking medication to boost their fertility.

The drug company Bayer is going to sell Menevit to infertile couples.

There are other fertility supplements and pills which also contain an amino acid called l-carnitine, which helps with sperm formation and can improve the quality and maturity of sperm. Men who take this amino acid usually have sperm with better motility (ability to swim). They also produce embryos of better quality as the amino acid either reverses or stops DNA damage from occurring.

Grapeseed extract and other vitamins, such as those mentioned above, are antioxidant so they help prevent free radicals which damage the body (think how an apple goes brown after you bite into it: this is called oxidization - antioxidants prevent this process from happening). They prevent ‘rusting’ of the body’s vital organs and slow down aging. They are great for reversing infertility.

If you want to try Menevit, talk to your doctor about when it will become available and whether you are a suitable candidate to receive treatment. If you are interested in trying other vitamin therapies and antioxidants, these can be bought from health food stores, but it would be best to consult a qualified nutritionalist to see what your body is lacking in and which vitamins would be right for you.

The Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (IVI) has launched an online service that allows couples to chose a donor for their future baby. The IVI exports semen samples that can be chosen on their website from a database of 110 donors, all of them listed by their physical descriptions, including skin color, eyes, stature, complexion, weight, and other characteristics.

It is currently illegal in Spain for women that will get fertility treatment to choose the physical attributes of the donors. The ones that choose the donors, in these cases, are the fertility centers, based on the complexions of the parents. The medical group that will treat the couple must then guarantee the closest phenotypical similarity between the parents and the donors.

However, this restriction is not found in other countries, and the IVI´s International Semen Bank is directed to them. Nicolás Garrido, of the IVI, says that “we have sent over 250 samples abroad, to countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil or Panama”. They have even had a request from Singapore, he says.

The requests, Garrido announces, have to be made from another reproduction center. They don´t accept requests directly from the women or couples that will receive the donation. The semen is sent frozen, in a 20 by 60 cm recipient. It costs 175 euro if the treatment will be through IVF (in vitro fertilization) or 250 euro if is through artificial insemination, since this kind of treatment need a larger amount of sperm.

In the IVI they claim that even though the physical characteristics of the donors are revealed, their identities aren´t, so the system follows the rules dictated by the spanish law. Spain´s Health Ministry has informed that they are analyzing that the IVI´s system complies to law.

VIA | Elpais

Patients that have been treated with chemotherapy following surgery were more likely to have less ovarian reserve compared to women that never went through such treatments, says a study made by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The investigators presented their findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology´s annual meeting, that will finish tomorrow, held in Chicago.

They studied markers of ovarian reserve in 20 premenopausal breast cancer patients that were treated successfully with chemotherapy, with no indication of recurrence. They were controlled against a group of twenty years-old that had no history of the disease.

The study showed involved using five tests conducted a few days after the menstrual cycle to control the ovaries´ physical condition, hormone levels and a compound involved in the menstrual cycle. Of those tests, four showed that breast cancer survivors had diminished ovarian reserve, compared to those that never had chemotherapy treatments. The other test did not show a great difference between both groups.

Ann Partridge, MD of Dana-Farber, the leader of the research, said that the findings can have further implications for women that want to have children after receiving chemotherapy, and that “Studies that track breast cancer survivors following treatment are needed to determine the predictive value of these tests for pregnancy.”

Via | Dana-Farber