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Tag: infertility

  • Khloe Kardashian Wasn’t Trying for Lamar Odom’s Baby

    Khloe Kardashian wasn’t trying to get pregnant with Lamar Odom’s baby during the past several months of her marriage to the NBA player, and she definitely isn’t pregnant now. In fact, she was even blowing off doctor’s appointments she had previously made to deal with infertility issues as well. This information comes from a conversation sister Kim Kardashian had with Jimmy Kimmel during an interview on his late night talk show on Thursday.

    “For so long, everyone in our family was feeling really sad for Khloe thinking that she wasn’t getting pregnant and everyone around her was,” Kim Kardashian said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “And the whole time, she wasn’t trying to and she was not showing up to these doctors appointments behind our back on purpose.”

    The infertility trials of the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star and her now estranged husband Lamar Odom long played themselves out on reality TV. Much was made about Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy with baby North West (her daughter with Kanye West) with family members vocalizing how sad everyone felt for Khloe Kardashian at the time.

    “She knew it wasn’t right and she knew she wasn’t ready,” Kim said about Khloe not wanting to get pregnant. “So now we understand it and we understand her decisions, it’s very clear.”

    This may be one of the smarter choices ever made by a member of the Keeping Up With the Kardashians gang. Known for their frequent ridiculous antics and occasionally their less-than-sensible business deals, this shows that at least one member of the family has some common sense. It definitely wouldn’t have been a good choice for Khloe Kardashian to have become pregnant while Lamar Odom was in the throes of drug addiction and running around with several different women. The entire scenario was a recipe for disaster and a pregnancy would have only made things worse.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Identical Triplets: Another Rare Case of Natural Conception

    Yet another rare birth of identical triplets occurred in Long Beach, Calif.

    Just a few months ago, Tom and Hannah Hepner gave birth to three baby girls on November 22 at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Northern California.

    According to medical examinations, the fertilization of identical triplets usually only occurs by infertility treatment. Even then, multiple births are rare but because of the advances in reproductive treatments and technology, identical triplets have been occurring more often than not.

    The conception of twins occurs when a single egg divides into two and fraternal twins occur by the conception of different eggs.

    In the case of identical triplets, a single egg splits in to three separate eggs.

    In a report by the Daily Mail, the Hepners’ doctor reported that the chance “of producing identical triplets without fertility drugs range from 1-in-1-million to 1-in-100-millions.”

    Well, it seems that Mother Nature may have the last say so in this matter.

    Recently, Brad and April Dooley gave birth to three baby boys on January 13. Patrick, Liam and Owen, who arrived six weeks earlier than expected, were each born between 4-minute intervals.

    All baby boys were said to be healthy except for Liam who had to go through minor surgery for an intestinal issue.

    When the couple was informed that they were pregnant with three little ones, they were instantly shocked. April, for one, said she became very emotional when Brad noticed not one but three fetuses while viewing their first ultrasound.

    The Dooleys initially wanted to add one other child to their family, for they already have a five-year-old daughter.

    “We were trying for one more time,” April said. “I had two miscarriages. We were just trying one more time to get pregnant.”

    Some may view these pregnancies as very uncommon. However, surprisingly enough, both couples conceived naturally without influences of artificial infertility treatments.

    Maybe in the near future the medical field will witness even more natural births of identical triplets and eventually throw out the notion that these types of pregnancies are impossible.

    Until then, it would be amazing to see all six in a cute photo shoot together!

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Fertility Treatments Linked to Asthma in Children

    A new study has shown that asthma was more common in children born after fertility treatments than those conceived naturally.

    The study found that five-year-old children born to “sub-fertile parents” were more likely to have asthma, wheezing, and to be taking anti-asthmatic medication. “Sub-fertile” parents were define as those who tried for at least one year before successful conception or those who received a form of assisted reproduction technology (ART). The trend was greatest for children born after in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), who were two to four times more likely to have asthma.

    “Although the children born after ART were more likely to be diagnosed and treated for asthma than other children, it is important to remember that in absolute terms the difference is quite small,” said Dr. Claire Carson, a researcher at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. “Fifteen percent of the children in our study had asthma at the age of five. Although this figure was higher, 24%, in the IVF children, it isn’t much higher than the one in five risk for all children in the UK.

    “Although we found an association, we cannot tell at this time if it is causal. Further research is needed to establish what might be causing the association and the underlying mechanism involved. It is also important to remember that for most children, asthma is a manageable condition and shouldn’t prevent children from living a full and active life.”

    The study, published last month in the journal Human Reproduction, looked at 13,000 five-year-olds from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study. Their mothers were surveyed about their conception and pregnancy, and the study was controlled for the mothers’ history of asthma, smoking, BMI, socioeconomic status, gestational age at the time of delivery, the type of delivery, and breast feeding.

    The researchers stated that explanations for the link include the severity of infertility, over-reporting of asthmatic symptoms by overly protective parents, the infertility treatments themselves, or other factors not taken into account.

    “Childhood asthma is a common condition in the UK where the prevalence of the condition is higher than other European countries, and (to our knowledge) this is the first UK study of asthma after IVF conceptions,” said Carson. “Our analysis suggests that it is the ART group in particular who are at higher risk. However, we do need to be reasonably cautious when interpreting the results because there is a relatively small number of IVF cases in our study – just 104 babies.”

  • Cancer Survivors Urged to Make Sperm Bank Follow-ups

    New research presented at the Fertility 2013 conference this week in Liverpool, England shows that many male cancer patients are not getting sufficient advice about their future fertility.

    Though sperm banking is often recommended for men diagnosed with cancer, many of them do not follow up with fertility advice. In the case of men in the U.K., this could mean their sperm will be thrown away. U.K. sperm bank laws require samples to be disposed of after 10 years, if infertility can’t be confirmed.

    “Trying to engage men with this subject is notoriously difficult,” said Dr. Allan Pacey, who presented the research and is a senior lecturer in Andrology at the University of Sheffield. “For those of us who run sperm banks, many men store their sperm and then do not contact us again, even though there are legal reasons to keep in contact.

    “Our research suggests that there is a need to educate men about the benefits of attending follow-up fertility clinics and the long-term consequences of non-attendance.”

    Pacey sent questionnaires to 499 male cancer survivors who had been treated for their cancer more than five years ago. He found that over one-third of the men never made a follow-up appointment to assess their fertility, while another third only attended one follow-up.

    Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation, can lead to permanent or temporary infertility. Pacey states that follow-up appointments are necessary for patients to receive crucial fertility advice.

    “Sperm banking is highly valued by men who want the option to have children once cancer treatment is completed,” said Christine Eiser, a psychology professor at the University of Sheffield. “Our research found that many men do not know how cancer treatment can affect their fertility or the likelihood of fertility recovery over the long-term. Having received a cancer diagnosis, patients immediately need to take in a lot of information regarding treatments and side-effects and it can be challenging to discuss potential longer-term effects on fertility at this time. We therefore need a mechanism to ensure that men are given information about fertility issues at a later date and certainly before treatment ends.”