News by Subject Medicine & Health

Despite only limited evidence that fertility add-ons increase the odds of having a baby, the majority of women (82%) have used one or more of these treatments as part of their IVF. This is the conclusion of a retrospective study of 1,590 Australian patients which also found more than seven in 10 (72%) had incurred additional costs for these unproven additional therapies and techniques which range from Chinese herbal medicine to endometrial scratching.

The link between obesity and the risk of endometrial cancer has been well documented. A new study, however, shows that an even lower body mass index (BMI) than previously thought can signal an increased risk in Asian women with postmenopausal bleeding. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

One of the largest studies of its kind has found women who use over-the-counter painkillers in pregnancy are around one and half times more likely to have a baby with health issues. The risk of a preterm delivery, stillbirth or neonatal death, physical defects and other problems are all higher compared with the offspring of mothers who did not take these drugs.

A large cohort study drawn from the national IVF registry of France, which included almost 70,000 pregnancies delivered after 22 weeks gestation between 2013 and 2018, has found a higher risk of pre-eclampsia and hypertension in pregnancies derived from frozen-thawed embryos. This risk was found significantly greater in those treatments in which the uterus was prepared for implantation with hormone replacement therapies. The results confirm with real-life data what has been observed in sub-groups of patients in other studies.

Cancer treatments can cause premature ovarian failure (POI) including in girls who want to become mothers eventually. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) provides a future fertility option but is invasive, has risks and evidence indicates that most girls don't develop POI. So, doctors face the dilemma of how to offer OTC appropriately. An assessment tool has been found to help predict correctly which female cancer patients aged under 18 years will develop POI and should therefore be offered OTC.

Studies indicate that the optimal and safe number of oocytes needed for achieving an ongoing pregnancy is between six and 15. A retrospective observational study suggests that IVF clinics in the UK may be retrieving "far too many oocytes" and that most of them "may never be used and are probably discarded".

Fertility patients who have a poor response to ovarian stimulation represent a stubborn challenge in IVF. Clinical guidelines indicate that increasing the drug dose for stimulation or applying any of several adjunct therapies are of little benefit. A study assessing two cycles of ovarian stimulation and two egg collections in the same menstrual cycle may yet provide a real advance for predicted poor responders in IVF.

More than a year after COVID-19 infection rates first hit peak levels and in the knowledge that receptors for SARS-CoV-2 are present in the ovary, are we able to assess the effect of the virus on reproductive function. A new study has shown that the ovarian reserve of women previously infected with the virus was not adversely affected, and that their chance of success from fertility treatment remained as it was before infection.

Women with depression and other mood disorders are generally advised to continue taking antidepressant medications during pregnancy. The drugs are widely considered safe, but the effect of these medications on the unborn fetus has remained a topic of some concern. Now, researchers have found that maternal psychiatric conditions -- but not the use of serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) -- increased the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delay (DD) in offspring.

Children who were exposed to higher levels of trace minerals manganese and selenium during their mothers' pregnancy had a lower risk of high blood pressure in childhood, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.