S'pore MD gives up 5-figure salary to be Mister Mum

This couple believe that a maid can never be a substitute for parents.

Especially when their offspring are twins conceived by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment.

It was a painful process and a difficult pregnancy for Madam Rachel Foo who was 33 when she gave birth to a pair of non-identical twins on June 29, 2005.

The couple, who married in 2001, named their boy, Aston, and their girl, Chelsea.

But when it came to the crunch on whether it would be Madam Foo, 39, or her husband, Mr Peter Chua, 56, who should stay home to look after their precious twins, the decision wasn't easy.

He was older. And he had a successful career.

Mr Chua was the managing director (Asia Pacific) of a US company in the cruise and resort industry, earning more than $10,000 a month.

On the other hand, the wife, who was then working as an executive assistant to the manager in a finance company, was earning about $4,000 a month.

But Madam Foo felt that she was not as patient as her husband and she did not like to stay at home.

The couple then decided that Mr Chua would stay home in their four-room HDB flat in Punggol, to look after the children while the wife would be responsible for bringing home the bacon.

Mr Chua said: "Rachel has a career to build. I think I have done enough in my career. To stop working and stay home to look after the children is just sacrificing my income.

"Our children are our primary concern..."

Open-minded

"To me, I want to spend more time with my children."

Madam Foo agreed, saying: "I told my husband that maids can never substitute us as parents.

"Peter is very open-minded and he didn't mind. He really looks after the kids very well. And I respect him for his sacrifices."

The first few years were tough as the couple struggled a little to make ends meet. They had to plan for everything that they were going to spend on. It also meant shorter holidays to places like Hong Kong and Macau and eating out less.

Madam Foo said: "It helped that we were staying with my mother while waiting for our new flat in Punggol."

But six years on and the couple are still very happy with the arrangement. Their twins are now six years old and attending pre-school.

Madam Foo has since joined a fund investment firm as a business manager and earns more than $5,000 a month.

She pays for her children's school fees and household expenses such as utility bills and groceries. When Aston and Chelsea were born, they spent three and five weeks respectively in the intensive care unit in the hospital.

"They were so tiny and it was not easy to care for them," Mr Chua recalled.

The couple had to hire a maid to do the household chores so that Mr Chua could fully concentrate on looking after the twins.

With the role reversal, Mr Chua was the one who woke up in the middle of the night to feed the twins and changed their diapers.

Now that the twins are in pre-school, Mr Chua begins his day by waking up at 6.30am to get them ready. He drops them off before taking his wife to the MRT station where she takes the train to work.

Before picking up his kids at 11am, Mr Chua goes grocery shopping or dabbles in stock trading activities.

After fetching the twins home, he ensures that Aston and Chelsea have a good bath and lunch before supervising them in their homework.

"After they have finished their homework, I play with them or read to them," Mr Chua said.

In the past six years as a house husband, Mr Chua has learned to be careful with his grocery spending as he would have to fork out the extra money whenever he exceeded the budget, he added jokingly.

"I did not have any training before, but I learned to bathe them, feed them and take care of them when they are sick.

"I call it a parent's instinct. Be it the dad or the mum, it is the parents' instinct to look after their children. I had learned to identify their cries, whether it was a cry that they had wet their diapers or a cry for milk," Mr Chua said.

As the twins grew older, Mr Chua attended toddler classes with them. It was inevitable that he received curious stares from other toddlers' mothers. But Mr Chua took the stares in his stride. He said: "I was the only man in my kids' class. And unlike them, I didn't just look after one kid, but two. I took the initiative to interact with them and even gave them some parenting tips that I had learnt."

Mr Chua said his family and friends supported his decision to care for the children, much to his surprise.

He said: "They told me that I have made the right decision and they actually envy me for being able to do it.

"There are always sacrifices in life. Sometimes money can create a lot of family problems, but I am glad that it has never been our problem.

"When Rachel and I decided on this arrangement, we knew what we were getting into. We had our little struggles and we don't envy others who are able to take their children on holiday during every school holiday. We need to strike a good balance."

On her part, his wife has never doubted his ability to take care of the children.

She said: "In my previous job, I would get very stressed out with the office politics and I would ask Peter if we could switch back our roles. But I also knew that I wouldn't last more than two months at home."

Madam Foo admits that her husband has done a better job than she ever could.

When Madam Foo returns home in the evenings, Mr Chua would patiently wait for her to settle down and have her dinner before lending her a listening ear.

He said: "I would listen to her talk about her work in the office and sometimes give her my advice. That's what a husband is for."

It is something his wife greatly appreciates.

Madam Foo said: "Sometimes I can get very carried away with my work and Peter is always there to remind me that our family is equally important."


Role reversal

With this reversal of roles, Mr Chua admitted he can now appreciate the role of a housewife better.

He said: "In our relationship, there is no one party who is superior to the other.

"Few men would like to do what I do. For it to work, you must believe in what you are doing and there needs to be trust between the spouses.

"If right now, I tell my wife that I would like to rejoin the workforce, she will support me in my decision.

"But now that I have grown so close to my children, it would be a huge sacrifice for me to go back to work and not be able to care for them.

"Unless the work is very challenging, I value my time with my children more than earning an income."

Wives: No respect lost for house hubbies

IF ONE party has to give up the job to look after the children, who should it be? Should it be dad or mum?

The New Paper on Sunday spoke to five couples who said that they have no issue with the man staying home to look after the children.

Most of them were more concerned with the loss of income of the party who needs to stay home, given the high cost of living in Singapore.

Typically, they felt that the person with the lower income should be the one to stay home.

Madam Jennifer Tan, 35, a sales executive, who gave birth to a son last week, said: "If the woman is earning $10,000 a month and the man is earning only $5,000 a month, then it makes more sense for the woman to keep her job to support the family."

Madam Tan's husband, Dr Andy Lee, 37, an entrepreneur, was asked if his wife would lose respect for him for if he stayed home to look after their baby.

Dr Lee replied: "I don't think so. If she wants me to be a stay-home dad, she can't say that I am worth nothing. I would have contributed by looking after our son."

Madam Tan said: "Why would I lose my respect for him? I feel it's a big sacrifice for the man to be able to do this. It just shows that he loves the family a lot."

Psychologist and family counsellor Richard Lim said there is a big jump in the number of wives who now earn the same, if not higher, salaries than their husbands. Often, this leads to unhappy situations at home.

Dr Lim said: "Regardless of what the initial arrangement was, it's hard for the man not to feel insecure. When the power shifts, it'll take for both the man and woman to adjust.

"Pride, which is an emotion, is not something that can be controlled."

Lawyer Steven Lam of JTJB has handled a few cases of wives divorcing their house husbands.

He said: "We're still an Asian society and the man is still regarded as the breadwinner. I have came across some cases where the woman had loved the man because of his status. And problems popped up when he became a house husband and she did not see him as capable as he used to be."

IVF may raise risk of diabetes, hypertension and cancer

People conceived through in vitro fertilisation treatment should be monitored for the early onset of high blood pressure, diabetes and certain cancers before the age of 50, according to a fertility specialist.

While IVF is generally considered to produce healthy babies, doctors have identified subtle genetic changes that may raise the risk of particular medical conditions in later life.

Since the birth of the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, on 25 July 1978, more than three million babies have been born through fertility treatment around the world. The vast majority are still under the age of 30.

The extent to which IVF babies develop more hypertension, diabetes and cancer will begin to emerge over the next two decades as they enter middle age, doctors said.

"By and large these children are just fine, it's not like they have extra arms or extra heads, but they have a small risk of undesirable outcomes. What's going to happen to them down the line? Bear in mind none is older than 31-years-old," said Carmen Sapienza, professor of pathology at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

"They have a much higher frequency of being low birthweight and this results in a higher tendency to be obese, a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension when you reach 50 years old," Sapienza told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on Monday.

In 2006, the Department of Health warned that Britain was facing a new wave of cancer on the back of increasing obesity in the population.

Obesity plays a role in 4% of cancers, including breast and womb cancer, and has also been linked to the disease in the bowel and kidney. In most cases, hormones released from fat are to blame.

"It makes sense for IVF children to watch out for hypertension, obesity and related diabetes and cancers as they reach their fifties," Sapienza said. "It will be interesting to monitor these children."

IVF odds of success are decent - study

IVF treatment continues to be a popular choice for making babies.

The treatment, known formally as in vitro fertilisation, is successful in producing a live birth in 41.4 per cent of treatment cycles for women under age 35, according to information released Monday by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

Data for 2009, the most recent year analysed, showed the rate of live births per cycle with fresh embryos did not change much from 2008, when it was 41.3 per cent for women under 35. However, that's an improvement from 2003, when the rate was 37.5 per cent.

Success rates fall off quickly for older women, however. In 2009, the percentage of cycles with fresh embryos resulting in live births was 31.7 per cent for women aged 35 to 37, 22.3 per cent for women aged 38-40 and 12.6 per cent for those aged 41-42.

The more embryos transferred, the higher the risk of multiple births. Several years ago, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology called on doctors and patients to limit embryo transfers to one in healthy, younger women who have a good chance of pregnancy.

But it appears as if SART's goal of reducing the number of embryos transferred isn't enthusiastically embraced. Only 7.2 per cent of women under age 35 opted for a single-embryo transfer in 2009, up from 5.2 per cent in 2008. In 2003, the rate was 0.7 per cent.

Overall, the average number of fresh embryos transferred was 2.0 for all age groups in 2009 compared with 2.6 in 2003.

The rate of live births with twins for women under age 35 was 32.9 per cent, a trend that hasn't changed much since 2003. The rate of triplet births in that age group, however, was 1.6 per cent in 2009 compared with 6.4 per cent in 2003.

The leading, single cause of infertility continues to be the male factor, which accounts for 17 per cent of cases in which people seek IVF treatment. A diminished number of eggs, which occurs most often in women age 35 and older, accounted for 15 per cent of cases, and in 12 per cent of cases the cause of infertility cannot be explained.

The rate of patients who elect to have preimplantation genetic diagnosis, in which a cell from the embryo is screened for evidence of genetic disorders, was 4 per cent in 2009.

The reports on specific clinics' success rates can be found on the SART website at www.sart.org. The society announced plans to enhance its website for consumers later this year to make it easier to find data.

Rod Stewart becomes father for the eighth time

Rocker Rod Stewart has become a father for the eighth time at the age of 66, after wife, former model Penny Lancaster, gave birth to a son they have named Aiden.
The British artiste and his wife said that they were "thrilled" to welcome their second child, a brother to their five-year-old son Alastair.
The couple went through three rounds of IVF before 39-year-old Lancaster finally became pregnant and she gave birth on Wednesday, reported Daily Mail online.
A spokesman for the pair said, "Mother and baby are healthy and blissfully happy."
The couple have been together for more than ten years. They were married in 2007 in Italy just outside Portofino, making Lancaster Stewart''s third wife.
Aiden is the star''s eighth child. Aside from Alastair, who was conceived naturally, the newborn joins Kimberley, 30, and Sean, 29, from the singer''s first marriage to Alana Stewart.
Stewart went on to have another daughter, Ruby, 23, with girlfriend Kelly Emberg. He then had Renee, 18, and son Liam, 15, with former wife, model Rachel Hunter.
He also has daughter Sarah Streeter, 46, who he fathered early in his career with art student Susannah Boffey and who was raised by adoptive parents.
But he has announced that Aiden will be his last child.
"I can''t have any more kids, otherwise I''ll be touring until I''m 90," said Stewart.
On a more amusing note, I received a press release from a betting company yesterday who are giving various odds on the future career of young Mr Aiden Stewart, who was less than 24 hours old when it landed in my inbox.
Here’s what you can bet your money on (seriously, do people actually DO this?)
Have a number one hit single before 2030 16/1
Footballer 10/1
Singer 3/1
Model 8/1
Actor 8/1
Other 1/2
Represent the Scottish national football side 25/1
Represent the English national football side 66/1
Odds on Rod still rocking on in 2030 to see his son hit number one in the charts? He’d be 92 by then. Pretty good I reckon, he’s a bit of a legend and I’ve had enough of writing people off as being ‘old’ when they hit 60.

Chromosome counting technique gives IVF a boost

One cycle of IVF, one egg, one embryo and one baby.

It sounds simple, and yet for the 35,000 women who undergo IVF in the UK each year it's unlikely.

Only one in three IVF cycles is successful, each one costing potentially thousands of pounds.

But a new chromosome counting technique pioneered at Oxford University could put paid to all that.

Microarray CGH (comparative genomic hybridisation) is used to check for any significant abnormalities present in the chromosomes of the embryo before implantation in IVF treatment.

A small number of cells are removed from the growing embryo five days after fertilisation and the DNA in them is scanned for any clear problems.

By Philippa Roxby


The results are available within 24 hours, which allows the maximum information to be obtained from the embryo before it is used.

Armed with this knowledge, doctors can then ensure that only embryos with the correct number of chromosomes are transferred in IVF, thereby improving the chances of a successful pregnancy and reducing the likelihood of miscarriage or Down's syndrome.

Dr Dagan Wells developed the technique of applying microarray CGH to embryos at the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Oxford.

He says: "Five days after the egg is fertilised it has more than 100 cells so we can safely take some cells for testing. The tests have worked really well, giving an accuracy rating of 98% - and there is no impact on the embryo of taking these cells either."

The chromosome screening technique is not intended to look for any specific genetic disorders relevant to the couple being treated or anything more subtle than viability.


We think it will help slightly older women who have an increased risk of a Down's syndrome baby and also young women who have a repeated failure of implantation”

"We are only testing for ability to be alive," says Dr Wells.

This gets around the two problems of IVF - the number of faulty embryos produced in a typical IVF cycle and the problem of distinguishing between the faulty and healthy embryos using traditional checks.

Embryos can seem to be growing well under a microscope but may still have chromosome abnormalities, and it's these abnormalities which lead to miscarriage or a Down's syndrome baby at full term.

The CGH technique can also be used at an earlier stage on patients' eggs, rather than on the embryos - created when the sperm has fertilised the egg.

This is particularly advantageous for women who have fewer, good embryos to start with because they will not have to wait until the blastocyst stage - five days after fertilisation - for the embryos to be analysed and transferred.

In some IVF patients - particularly those above the age of 42 - it can become more and more difficult to find 'normal' embryos, because fewer eggs and fewer embryos are produced as women age.

Studies analysing the benefits of CGH to date are promising, but experts agree that more scientific evidence is required before the technique is applied routinely in IVF clinics.

A study of American women in Colorado found that pregnancy rates increased by more than 50% following chromosome screening, but since it is normal to transfer around three embryos during IVF in the US rather than just one in the UK, this enhances the results.

For Dr Wells, it is the implantation rate that is important - the chance that one embryo can make a pregnancy.

Stewart Lavery, consultant gynaecologist and director of the IVF at Hammersmith Hospital in London, has been carrying out CGH for a year.

"It's a really exciting technique which does have potential, but we have to be cautious. We need some good evidence first," he says.

The safety of the technique is certainly not in question. What IVF experts need is evidence of which patients will benefit from CGH and by how much.

Mr Lavery says: "We think it will help slightly older women who have an increased risk of a Down's syndrome baby and also young women who have a repeated failure of implantation."

So it may yet be a long time before it's available on the NHS. But it could make financial sense if it saved on costly IVF cycles, avoided terminations and cut the numbers of miscarriages dealt with in hospital.

What is certain is that in the search for a 'normal' egg and a 'normal' embryo IVF doctors have to use their judgement. Is there such a thing as a 'normal' embryo?

Even for women not going through IVF, becoming pregnant is a very tricky and complicated business. Failure to conceive is common, occurring regularly even before the woman is aware of it.

"We have already beaten the odds just by being alive," says Dr Wells.

For women going through IVF, anything that increases the odds of a baby is all that matters.

Uterine Health More Important Than Egg Quality

For women seeking pregnancy by assisted reproductive technologies, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a new study shows that the health of the uterus is more relevant than egg quality for a newborn to achieve normal birth weight and full gestation. This study, published in Fertility and Sterility, an international journal for obstetricians, offers new information for women with infertility diagnoses considering options for conceiving.

The study was conducted by Dr. William Gibbons, director of The Family Fertility Program at Texas Children's Hospital and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine, along with colleagues at the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART) Marcelle Cedars, MD and Roberta Ness, MD. They reviewed three years of data that compared average birth weight and gestational time for single births born as a result of standard IVF, IVF with donor eggs and IVF with a surrogate. While the ability to achieve a pregnancy is tied to egg/embryo quality, the obstetrical outcomes of birth weight and length of pregnancy are more significantly tied to the uterine environment that is affected by the reason the woman is infertile.

There were more than 300,000 IVF cycles during the time of the study producing more than 70,000 singleton pregnancies.

"This is the first time that a study demonstrated that the health of a women's uterus is a key determinant for a fetus to obtain normal birth weight and normal length of gestation," said Dr. Gibbons. "While obvious issues of uterine fibroids or conditions that alter the shape of the uterus are suspected to affect pregnancy rates, conditions that result in poorer ovarian function to the point of needing donor eggs are not known. Further research is needed to fully understand this complex issue."

As assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the U.S. mature, increasing attention is directed not just to pregnancy rates but also to the obstetrical outcomes of those resulting pregnancies – meaning the newborn's birth weight, health and gestational age. Currently, about one percent of U.S. births are the result of ART therapies such as IVF, donor eggs, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, embryo cryopreservation, embryo donation, preimplanation genetic diagnosis, and male infertility surgery and medical therapy.

The study explored several scenarios and found that the birth weight associated with standard IVF – in which the patient carried the embryo created with her own egg – was greater than that associated with donor egg cycles, and less than that in gestational carrier cycles. This finding held true even when other factors were considered showing that the woman's own uterus may be a determining factor.

Gibbons said the study also determined that a diagnosis of male infertility did not affect birth weight or gestational age, yet every female infertility diagnosis was associated with lower birth weight and a reduced gestational age.

Patients diagnosed with a uterine health issue, such as fibroids or other factors, had babies with the lowest birth weights and gestational ages. This led the researchers to examine the uterine environment as it relates to the type of therapy being considered.

Gibbons explains that in standard IVF, an embryo is transferred to a woman who has just undergone controlled ovarian hyperstimulation, while in donor egg IVF and gestational carrier IVF, the embryo is transferred to a "natural" or unstimulated uterus. Then, the researchers looked at IVF utilizing frozen embryo transfer in which an embryo created with a patient's own egg is transferred to her own unstimulated uterus. They found that babies born of frozen embryo transfer cycles had markedly greater birth weights than those born as a result of standard IVF.

"That finding may help women seeking pregnancy and their physicians to consider frozen embryo transfer as a possible option if the uterine health is not a consideration," said Gibbons. "This study shows us how so many factors are related to a successful outcome and we continue to learn where further research may be needed."

Mad, sad or just desperate for fame? Judith Kilshaw failed in her bid to adopt American twins and now wants IVF at 57

Judith Kilshaw is hoping for the inside track on Sir Elton John’s baby son Zachary when we meet. ‘Who do you think the ­father is?’ she asks, referring to news that both ­Elton and his partner David Furnish ­‘contributed’ to the child’s conception.
‘I’m not sure whether it was David Furnish’s sperm or Elton’s,’ she continues. ‘Do you know? Perhaps it was a ­mixture of them both, but I wouldn’t have left it to chance.
‘If you were having someone’s sperm, which one would you go for? The one with no money or the one with money? The one with talent or without talent? I know which one I’d choose.’
I bet she does.
Judith, remember, was vilified as the most hated mother in Britain after she and her former ­husband Alan paid an unscrupulous baby broker in the U.S. £8,200 to adopt six-month-old, mixed-race American twins Belinda and Kimberley, who were put up for sale on the internet.
At the time, Tony Blair called the adoption deal ‘disgusting’ and weeks after their arrival in Britain, Flintshire social services seized the twins. They were returned to the U.S. after a High Court judge annulled the adoption, branding the Kilshaws ‘media obsessed’ with no genuine concern for the twins’ welfare.
The controversial legal battle cost the couple everything — the babies, their jobs, their £230,000 farmhouse in Buckley, North Wales, and their 14-year-marriage.
You might have thought Judith had had a stomach full of notoriety. But it seems not. Now, on the tenth anniversary of the scandal surrounding the twins — bought for the price of a Fiat Panda — Judith, 57, has decided she wants to go to Italy for IVF treatment.
‘It’s getting later and later,’ she says. ‘I think it would be nice to cement our relationship.’ By our, she means her ­relationship with her new husband Stephen Sillett, who is 13 years her junior and whom she married in April 2009. Or at least I think she means Stephen.
To my surprise, her ex-husband is here too, in the Silletts’ cramped terrace home near Wrexham in North Wales. They are, they say, the best of friends after Alan gave Judith away at her wedding to Stephen.
‘I didn’t actually leave the marriage,’ says Judith. ‘We’re all here together. It’s an absolutely unique situation.’
It certainly is, but back to the IVF. Why on earth would a woman of 57, with four children from two earlier marriages, want a baby?
‘I guess it’s my way of proving I was right all the time,’ she says. ‘The social services deemed we were not good enough to look after two girls, but we were.’
Oh, so I presume she was heartbroken when the little girls were taken from her. Does she miss them?
‘No,’ says Judith. ‘Time’s moved on. They’re in America [the twins live with foster parents in a quiet ­suburb of St Louis, Missouri] and we’re in Britain. There’s no point missing them.’
So why IVF? Her answer is both bizarre and deeply chilling.
‘You’ve probably got a good career, plenty of cash and your life’s sorted,’ she says. ‘Not everybody’s lives are like that. I wanted to go on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here with Christine Hamilton.
‘We were in a question-and-answer session with the Hamiltons once. I stood up and said to her: “People often call me the poor man’s Christine Hamilton. Do they ever call you the rich man’s Judith Kilshaw?” The whole place fell about.
‘Being in the jungle with her would have been interesting to me — or Wife Swap.’
What? Is Judith ­actually saying she wants a baby to forge a media career? Surely she’s pulling my leg — but, no, she’s not. She continues: ‘It’ll only happen if this case comes off.’
Ah yes, the case. The Kilshaws, you see, are seeking damages from their local authority Flintshire County Council for what they say is the unlawful removal of their adopted children.
Owing to the privacy laws in cases involving children, it’s not possible to go into the exact whys and wherefores here, but suffice to say Alan has enlisted the support of his local Tory Welsh Assembly member and has a file of letters from the authority, which he claims gives weight to his charge of a cover-up.
‘I’d like a review of the case and I’d like the irregularities that I believe went on to be looked into,’ says Alan. ‘If they’re proven to have gone on, first I’d like a high-profile apology and, secondly, it needs to be looked into how this has affected my life. It has, very seriously.
‘It’s ruined my career [Alan, a ­housing law solicitor was struck off by The Law Society following the furore] and it’s affected my health. I now ­suffer with diabetes. One of the main causes of diabetes is stress.
‘I also have high blood pressure, ­cholesterol problems, high blood sugar — a whole range of things that are all interlinked.’ So how much compensation is he seeking? Judith chips in. ‘Very much,’ she says. ‘I want £1million for me and the same for Alan.’
Stephen, who’s sitting next to Judith on an oversized leather sofa in this ­cluttered sitting room, perks up: ‘I’ve seen examples of the aggressive behaviour Judith has had to put up with. We’ve had people shout things like “childnappers” and “you’re that ’effing Kilshaw woman”.
‘The abuse Alan and Judith have had to endure because of what’s ­happened is ­terrible. Alan’s been very affected. I feel sorry for the bloke. He’s my best friend.’
Alan continues: ‘The thing is, once the media goes away after something like this, the individual is left to pick up the pieces and that’s very hard.
‘You find yourself in a state of limbo. Obviously there are people from The X Factor or Big Brother who end up making media careers, and if you can get to that point that’s fine. But we didn’t have that chance.’
He reflects for a moment. ‘I ­remember some bloke saying we were the third most highly recognised ­people in the world.’ The world? Surely not. Judith jumps in: ‘We were in an Indian restaurant in Bishop’s Castle and they got all the chefs out, the washers-up, everybody, saying: “Come and meet them. Come and meet them.” We got invited out to Bengal.
There were thousands of letters, too. I burnt some. I got to recognise the regulars’ handwriting. But when Angelina Jolie or Madonna adopt a child, they’re put in OK Magazine and on the telly. What’s wrong with me doing it?
‘Are you saying that if a child is in India and living on a tip, eating off a tip, working and being exploited, that’s morally better than somebody giving them a home that wants them?’
No. But come on, what sort of ­person adopts a child, or attempts IVF for that matter, as a career move?
Stephen, who also has two ­children from a previous relationship and runs his own cleaning business, interjects: ‘Tony Blair uses his children. Anyway, Judith is a very moral person. She can’t stand injustice.’
Judith nods solemnly: ‘I’m Saint Judith, patron saint of lost causes.’ Strewth. I can honestly say in 20-odd years of journalism I have never encountered such a deluded woman.
But the ­chilling truth is, in this bonkers age of kiss-and-tell celebrity not to mention an unregulated international baby and IVF market, she might just get what she wants. God forbid.
Judith’s saintliness, you see, doesn’t really extend to responsible ­parenting. In fact, it’s fair to say, she doesn’t seem to have a maternal bone in her body.
She already has four children, James, 17, and Rupert, 14, from her marriage to Alan, and two grown-up daughters, Louisa, 31, and her 28-year-old sister Caley.
But she walked out on the boys five years ago to set up home with Stephen, whom she met in a ­Chester nightclub, and hasn’t spoken to her daughters in years.
‘Oh, Caley was an absolute ­tragedy,’ she says. ‘She was spoilt to death — ­disrespectful, spoilt. Everything she saw she demanded. She had 16 horses. She’d get one horse, love it and a week later it would be too big, too fast, too small.’
I wonder where she is now. ‘She’s, what do you call her, an alien in America. She’s in ­Seattle as far as we know, but we don’t know for sure. I haven’t spoken to her for four years. The other one’s in Preston, or Prescott is it?’
And the boys?
‘I asked them if they wanted to come with me or stay with their dad. I suppose it was just ­easier for them to stay.’
Don’t you miss them? ‘No.’ But they’re your children. You gave birth to them. ‘Oh, James was a horrendous baby,’ she says. ‘Put Alan off babies for life, didn’t it? He never stopped crying. Rupert was better.
‘When I was pregnant with him I thought he was a girl. I’ve actually found out the sex is decided later in the ­pregnancy. So he was a girl and he became a boy later. I don’t know how long it takes.’
Which is, of course, complete ­nonsense. Anyway, back to the adoption. Given her — well, let’s say lukewarm — response to motherhood, why adopt twin girls?
‘We didn’t ask for twins, and we didn’t specifically ask for a baby,’ she says. ‘We said we wanted a child who could be up to probably five, but we didn’t want to take someone who was 12 and settled in America.
‘I wanted a sister for the boys because Alan always wished he’d had a sister. So we thought it would be nice for both of them.
‘When we heard it was twins, we thought: “Well, we might as well have two.” If you’re making one ­bottle, you can just as easily make another.
‘Don’t forget, I had an army of people to help me — my mum, Caley, the cleaner, child minders, nannies. Yes, an army of people. I suppose a bit like Elton John.
‘When we got to San Diego to pick them up, I just felt relief. We’d flown on a tin-can plane from ­Chicago to San Diego and I’d gone deaf in my ears. We were knackered.
‘Can you believe the birth mother wanted us to have them that night? We’d flown for 12 hours with no sleep, but she insisted.
‘She said: “They’ll be good. They won’t cry.” But they did.
‘Alan was trying to get away from the noise by climbing into the wardrobe at one time, weren’t you? He was that tired.’
Alan nods: ‘We were accused of all kinds of things and found out once the case was ­finished that these children suffered from a condition called ­reactive attachment ­disorder, ­meaning they failed to bond with their parents.
‘They’d been passed around so much. We were accused of ­damaging them, but we couldn’t have done because they’d already been harmed.’ This is said with the lack of ­emotion that one might speak of a faulty clutch.
So how did they feel when the babies were taken from their care?
Alan says: ‘I was angry. We paid for the facility to adopt them. We’d had a private home study [where ­private agencies rather than social workers carried out investigations into their suitability to adopt] and hadn’t done anything illegal.’
Following legislation brought in by the then Labour government, such private adoptions are now ­illegal in this country.
‘I do think, though, that Judith handled some of the press badly. [She had a scuffle with a newspaper reporter.] What made me depressed is it just seemed impossible to change what people were thinking and writing. People have said to me: “Why do you keep doing stuff with the media?” The answer is I wanted them to get the real me.
‘If the press had been decent and written what they should have ­written, everything would have been so much easier.’
I’m sure. So, in the interests of decent ­journalism, let’s clear up one little question. Which relationship is Judith hoping to cement with the IVF treatment? ‘IVF,’ roars Stephen. ‘That’s news to me. I don’t think I’d be ­interested in being a father.’
Crikey. What about you, Alan?
‘I think once you get beyond the age of 50, you should leave it alone. It gets to the point where it gets irresponsible,’ he says — which is the first sensible thing that’s been uttered in the past two hours.
Then he adds: ‘But never say never.’ Oh dear, haven’t these two learned any lessons in the past ten years?
‘Oh yes,’ says Alan. ‘When people have said: “If you had your time again is there anything you’d do ­differently?”, I’ve always said: “Yes, there’s one thing. I’d have got an agent involved. Someone like Max Clifford.” ’ Enough said.



By REBECCA HARDY

Fertility expert: IVF discount in return for eggs is exploitation

One of Britain's leading fertility experts today accused clinics of exploiting women by offering them cut-price IVF in return for their eggs.

Professor Robert Winston said that schemes where patients are encouraged to share their eggs with infertile women were wrong.

Lord Winston said: "Egg-sharing is a very bad idea and an easy way of exploiting women wanting treatment. It's a pretty devastating scenario to give eggs to someone else and that other person gets pregnant and you don't. Then 20 years later you're contacted by that child. It's shocking."

Lord Winston said he supported a change in the law to allow payments for egg donation. At present, egg donors can be compensated up to £250 but proposals published by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority this week suggest they could in future be paid several thousand pounds.

The HFEA consultation also covers sperm donors, egg-sharing and the ethics of clinics offering "inducements" in return for eggs.

Peter Bowen-Simpkins, medical director of the London Women's Clinic which runs an egg-sharing scheme, said his clinic opposed payments to egg donors as they might not appreciate the health risks of fertility medication. "It's asking young people, especially students with debts, to donate and could permanently harm them," he said. "With egg-sharing, women are already undergoing IVF and know the risks."

Elaine O'Hara, 30, of Hampshire, and civil partner Suzanne, 29, started fertility treatment at the LWC last autumn. The couple, who are in the Army, are taking part in the egg-sharing scheme in return for part of their treatment costs. Ms O'Hara, an accountant, said: "I decided to donate eggs because we couldn't conceive and have a family without a (sperm) donor.

"More people would come forward if donors are paid - of course money would be an incentive. But I don't know if that guarantees the quality of eggs. It was made clear that if another women conceives with my eggs then we might get a 16-year-old contacting us. That would be exciting though."

The Government is also under pressure over the ban on paying women who act as surrogate mothers. Actress Nicole Kidman, 43, and her husband Keith Urban have revealed that they have become parents to a girl born with a surrogate mother last month. The couple are the biological parents of Faith Margaret, They already have a two-year-old daughter, Sunday Rose.

Vitrolife receives patent protection for Swemed Sense needle in European markets

Swemed Sense™ is a unique needle that is used for the collection of oocytes in connection with IVF. The approved patent means that Vitrolife has both design protection and product patent protection for Swemed Sense™ in strategically important European markets. A patent has also been applied for in other prioritized markets.

A recently presented study shows that Swemed Sense™ gives less pain and bleeding during the collection of oocytes, compared with a conventional needle.

Swemed Sense™ has a unique design, as advantages from both thin and thick needles are combined in one and the same needle. Swemed Sense™ is designed with a thinner front part and tip so as to minimize tissue damage, bleeding and pain. The rear part of the needle has a larger diameter, which means that the needle is stable and at the same time maintains flow and speed.

The market for needles used in the collection of oocytes for IVF is estimated to amount to approximately 40 million Euros globally.

Couple's baby joy after spending £54k on IVF treatment

When she lost her son Jack to meningitis, just weeks before his second birthday, ­Jennifer Heneghan’s world fell apart.
She was a single mum and ­everything she did revolved around her little boy. But as she battled to cope with her grief at just 23, ­doctors dealt her another ­devastating blow – she would never be a mum again.
But despite being told she was infertile, Jennifer refused to give up on her dream of having another child.
And now, after years of trying and £54,000 spent on IVF treatment she has finally given birth to her longed-for baby.
Jennifer, 33, says: “I didn’t want to replace Jack. Nothing ever could. I simply wanted to be a mum again. To lose a child is unbearable; to then be told you can never have any more shatters you.
“I just couldn’t give up and thank goodness we didn’t. Now when people ask I say I have two sons.”
Jack was born when she was 21. Though she split with his dad shortly after the birth and life hadn’t turned out as she’d planned it, as a single mum at 21, Jennifer couldn’t have been happier.
“Jack was my world. I loved being a mummy and the two of us were joined at the hip,” she recalls.
But just a few weeks before his second ­birthday, Jack went off his food and became clingy and lethargic.
A worried Jennifer took him to the GP who prescribed ­antibiotics for a ­suspected infection.
But as the days passed Jack got worse and one night, with his temperature soaring, he seemed difficult to rouse.
Jennifer rushed him to ­Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire, but was advised to take him home and continue with the medication.
Only hours later Jack’s eyes became glazed and he started gasping for breath.
Jennifer’s mum called an ambulance and he was rushed back to the hospital. “A crash team were waiting and whisked him straight off,” ­Jennifer remembers. “We were taken to the relatives’ room and that’s when I heard the ‘M’ word.”
She was told Jack had ­suffered a heart attack caused by ­meningitis. He was on life support.
“When the doctor told me to call Jack’s family, in my heart I knew he was never coming home. A piece of me died right then,” she says.
Just three hours later Jack’s fight was over. “I screamed in shock and broke down,” recalls Jennifer. “I don’t even remember the next few weeks. I should have been planning his second birthday, not his funeral.”
In time Jennifer moved on and fell in love with best friend Marie’s brother Kevin, a National Grid engineer.
“It helped that Kevin had known Jack,” says Jennifer. “I don’t think I could have been with someone who didn’t know him because he was such a big part of my life.”
The couple discussed kids and both agreed they wanted to try. “I didn’t want to replace Jack but I knew life would always be empty without ­children for me,” she says. “I ­wanted to be a mum and I knew Kevin would be an excellent dad.” The couple decided to get married the following ­summer but started trying for a baby straight away.
But the wedding came and went with no news so they decided to ask doctors for some advice.
And after being referred to hospital for tests, ­Jennifer’s dreams were about to be destroyed.
“The consultant ­explained that I had ­developed a condition that had fused my tubes ­together,” ­explains Jennifer. “I asked what they could do and he just shook his head and said nothing. I was ­infertile.” Jennifer was only 25.
“It took a few minutes for it to sink in. I was stunned. I’d got ­pregnant so easily with Jack it seemed impossible.Apparently now I had more chance of winning the lottery than having a baby.”
For Jennifer the pain of losing Jack came flooding back. He’d been her only chance at motherhood and she’d lost him. The couple asked to have her tubes flushed to remove the blockages but it failed.
“It looked like there really was no hope. But then Kevin suggested we cancel a holiday we were ­planning and put the money ­towards IVF instead,” she says.
But four painful attempts and £25,000 later, Jen, who manages a care home for adults with learning difficulties, was still not pregnant.
“It was like being on a rollercoaster,” she ­recalls. “One minute up, the next minute ­heartbroken at another failed attempt.”
And then to top it all off Jennifer developed Bell’s Palsy – a weakness of the facial muscles – which made her look like she’d had a stroke.
“The doctor said it could be stress-induced because of the worry of the IVF,” she says. “He advised me to start looking after myself and he was right. After four cycles in as many years everything had taken a back seat to IVF and we needed a break.”
For the next three years Jennifer and Kevin, now 35, ­focused on their ­relationship – enjoying holidays and time ­together without the pressure of treatment cycles. But the yearning for a baby got stronger.
So in 2008 the couplecontacted London’s ­Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology ­Centre and signed up for another course.
Just three weeks later, Jennifer found out she was ­pregnant with twins.
But their joy was short-lived after ­Jennifer miscarried at six weeks.
“I told Kevin I wasn’t sure I could go through it all again,” she says. By this time Jennifer was 33 and the couple had already forked out a huge £40,000.
Over the eight years they had been trying to conceive, the couple spent all their money on IVF giving up holidays and even missing out on home improvements. They had taken out one loan of £4,000 early in the process.
But they agreed to have one last shot using the two frozen eggs they had left. And when they realised it would cost another £14,000 to have the eggs thawed and implanted they turned to Jen’s parents for the money.
It was their first frozen cycle and they were apprehensive, ­especially when one egg didn’t survive. But the other did and two weeks later, Jennifer was pregnant again.
For Jennifer, the whole ­pregnancy was fraught with worry. She was terrified the worst would happen again, especially when a blood clot developed in her womb.
But week after week, her regular scans showed their baby clinging on. At 14 weeks they found out it was a boy. Then at 34 weeks ­Jennifer went into early labour and had baby Tiernan. At just 5lb 10oz he was taken to baby care, but the next day she got to hold him. At 18 days he was allowed home.
And now he’s seven months old. “After what we went through it doesn’t matter what he cost because we feel like we have won the ­lottery,” Jennifer beams. “We never gave up on our dream and finally it came true. I can never thank Mum and Dad enough because the money they gave us bought us Tiernan.”
Jennifer thinks Tiernan is the image of his big brother Jack.
“People always used to tell me how Jack was cheeky but adorable at the same time – and Tiernan is the same,” she says. “The older he gets the more he looks like Jack with the same mousey hair and blue eyes.”
And while Jennifer ­admits being a mum in her 30s is much more tiring, she’s ­loving every minute.
“I don’t take anything for granted and I’m afraid to say he has me wrapped around his little finger.
“He’s the miracle I’ve waited years for and he’s here in my arms at last. When I’m cuddling him I look at his little face and know it was worth every minute of the pain and ­anguish of IVF.”
Needless to say the family had their best Christmas ever last month.
“There’s only one word to describe the presents piled under our tree – shameless!” she laughs.
“I never thought I’d be ­opening presents with a child again on Christmas Day. How could I not go over the top with him?
“It used to be a sombre day because it’s all about children and just reminded us what we couldn’t have. Now Tiernan is the best gift of all.”

Clowning helps IVF patients become pregnant: study

Dr. Shevach Friedler an infertility doctor with the Infertility and IVF unit at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, in Zrifin, Israel, led a study of the effects of a bedside encounter with a professional medical clown on the pregnancy rate of women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Dr. Friedler and colleagues tracked 219 women undergoing IVF treatment at the medical center and, over a period of a year, treated half of them to a medical clown's 15-minute routine of jokes, magic tricks and other clowning immediately after their embryos were implanted. The clown’s routine was created especially for the study by Friedler and a colleague.
The results showed 36.4 percent of women exposed to clowning immediately after embryo transfer became pregnant, while only 20.2 percent of the controls became pregnant. Dr. Friedler said the reason was probably because the clowning reduced the stress of what for many was many years of grueling IVF treatments, but this is not certain. It is also unclear what role, if any, stress may play in the success of IVF treatments.
Dr. Friedler, who is also trained in movement and mime, originally thought of the research after reading about laughter as an anti-stress mechanism. He realized that IVF patients are often extremely stressed, and wondered if relieving that stress through clowning at a crucial moment in the treatment could help.
Dr. Friedler and colleagues conclude that medical clowning may be a beneficial adjunct to IVF treatments and it deserves further investigation. Medical clowning is already used to good effect in hospitals in Europe, Australia, North America and Israel, particularly in children’s hospitals.
Dr. Friedler also pointed out that clowning is “one of the least hazardous interventions in our field.” Other methods of reducing stress could also be investigated. The findings are reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
More information: The effect of medical clowning on pregnancy rates after in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET), Shevach Friedler, M.D et al., Fertility and Sterility, published online 06 January 2011, doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2010.12.016

Soya-based fertility treatment may cut miscarriages and boost pregnancy up to six-fold

An experimental fertility treatment increases the odds of an IVF pregnancy up to six times while also inhibiting chemicals which cause miscarriages, a study has found.
When women who had gone through IVF time and time again without success were given a soya-based substance, half became pregnant.
In contrast, fewer than one in ten of those who had conventional fertility treatment alone conceived.
The doctors behind the remarkable study believe that the Intralipid liquid, a fat and calorie-rich potion normally used when tube-feeding very sick patients, could help many more women achieve their dream of motherhood.
Improving success rates would spare women the emotional and financial pain of going through repeated IVF treatments, only for them to fail. The liquid also stems the production by the body of harmful chemicals which can lead to miscarriage.
George Ndukwe, of the Care fertility clinic in Nottingham, said: ‘Every day in my clinic I see women who have had numerous IVF cycles all with the same negative outcome and no baby.
‘I also regularly see couples who have suffered the misery of repeated miscarriages.
‘People talk about the financial implications but the emotional one is as bad or, I would say, worse.
‘These women are at the bottom of a dark pit and can’t climb out and can’t see the light.
We are devoting our attention to finding answers when nature goes wrong.’
Dr Ndukwe, the clinic’s medical director, believes that up to one in four women who struggle conceiving have faulty immune systems.
It is thought that extra high levels of white blood cells called natural killer cells ‘fight’ the pregnancy by triggering the production of chemicals that attack the placenta or the embryo.
The chemicals are already known to trigger rheumatoid arthritis and the arthritis drug Humira has shown promise in boosting pregnancy rates.
However, it costs up to £3,500 per patient and does not work for everyone.
At around £200 per woman, Intralipid, which is given through a drip around a week before a woman has IVF, is much cheaper.
And the latest research, to be presented at a British Fertility Society conference on Thursday, shows it is also more effective at stemming production of the harmful chemicals.
Dr Ndukwe said: ‘This infusion is inexpensive, well tolerated and easy to administer.’
The fertility expert ran his trial on a group of women who had failed to become pregnant despite enduring an average of six IVF attempts each. One woman had tried and failed at IVF 12 times.
Half of those treated became pregnant, compared with just 9 per cent of those not given the fatty substance.
Other doctors are trying to use steroids to lower levels of natural killer cells in the body.
Professor Siobhan Quenby, of Solihull Hospital and Warwick University, has already successfully used an asthma drug to curb the immune system response in a pilot trial of women who had suffered repeated miscarriages.

Latest iPhone application predicts IVF chances

Want to know your chance of having a baby through in-vitro fertilisation? There's an application for that.

British researchers have devised a formula which they say gives a highly accurate prediction of the potential success of IVF, to help couples decide whether to try the treatment.

They have made it available online as a simple computer calculator application, and say it will soon be available for download on Apple iPhones and other mobiles.

Scientists from the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol analysed the details of more than 144,000 IVF cycles to produce a statistical model that can give a prediction of live birth which is up to 99% accurate.

"Treatment-specific factors can be used to provide infertile couples with a very accurate assessment of their chance of a successful outcome following IVF," said Scott Nelson of the University of Glasgow, who led the research.

Nelson, whose work was published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine journal, said that up until now estimates of success have not been very reliable.

The formula takes into account the woman's age, number of years trying to get pregnant, whether she is using her own eggs, the cause of infertility, the number of previous IVF cycles and whether she has previously been pregnant or had a baby.

"The result of this study is a tool which can be used to make incredibly accurate predictions," he said in a statement.

Nelson's team used data held by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates IVF treatment in Britain. They looked at all cycles carried out between 2003 and 2007 and assessed the chances of having a live birth.

The fertility treatment market is big and growing, with an estimated 140,000 IVF cycles in the United States in 2008. As many as 80 million couples worldwide are infertile, experts say.

In the United States and Britain, IVF is successful in about a third of women under 35 years old but in only five to 10% of women over the age of 40, Nelson said.

There are many other factors besides age which can alter the chance of success "and clinics don't usually take these into account when counselling couples or women", he added.

The calculator is already available free at www.ivfpredict.com.

Applications for iPhones and Android smart phones will be available soon, so users "can discuss the results with clinicians in the clinic", the website says.

"There is a real need in medicine to try and replace general statements such as 'high risk' and 'good chance' with well validated, quantitative estimates of probability," said Gordon Smith, head of Cambridge University's obstetrics and gynaecology department, who did not work on the study.

"This model ... provides women considering IVF with an understandable and quantitative estimate of their chances of success. It is a great resource."

IVF mix-up: Couple decides to keep the baby

The couple in the centre of the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) mix-up case has decided to keep the baby. Their lawyer Mr S. Palaniappan, speaking on their behalf, said that the mother has already bonded with the infant. The baby has a markedly different complexion from that of his mother, a Singaporean Chinese woman, and her husband, a Caucasian Singapore PR. The baby's blood type is B, while those of the couple is A and O. A DNA test has confirmed that the child has the mother's DNA makeup, but not the father's.

Dr Cheng Li Chang, the medical director of Thomson Fertility Centre where the couple had sought IVF treatment, said in a statement that he and his colleagues "fully empathise with the couple, and are very sorry and distressed over what has happened". It was reported that they have met the couple to explain the situation, and will keep them updated and provide them with all possible support. Dr Cheng said the centre's operating procedures "meet all regulatory requirements, and are of the highest international standards".

The Ministry of Health, however, has said that "certain practices" could be improved. While it did not specify these practices, it will be issuing additional directives to correct them in time to come. It is understood that Thomson Fertility Centre is working closely with MOH in investigating the mix-up, and will work with the ministry to implement any action it may recommend.
Meanwhile, fertility doctors have expressed shock over the case, which is the first of its kind in Singapore.

The mix-up does not seem to have shaken the confidence of other couples undergoing IVF treatment here. Patients interviewed said that they would continue with treatment, and that they would keep the child even if a mix-up happened to them as well.

IVF cerebral palsy risks probed

Fertility problems in parents cannot explain why babies born through IVF treatment face a higher risk of cerebral palsy, say Danish scientists.

The University of Aarhus found babies of couples who struggled to conceive naturally had similar risks compared to those who conceived quickly.

But they found that the risk doubled in babies born with the help of IVF.

Other potential causes, such as the treatment itself, should be investigated, the scientists say.

UK experts said despite the low risk the issue needed to be taken seriously.

The safety of IVF and similar fertility treatments has been closely scrutinised since the first "test-tube baby" in the 1970s.

As the number of IVF babies rises, initial worries about developmental problems have faded, but there remain concerns over higher rates of cerebral palsy.

There are several possible reasons, including the increased risk of complications in multiple pregnancies, which until recently have been much more frequent in IVF pregnancies.

Doctors had also suspected that the underlying reasons for infertility might play a part, but the latest research casts doubt on that.

The team looked at a national database of medical information from thousands of pregnancies and births, the journal Human Reproduction reported.

They compared cerebral palsy rates in babies grouped depending on how long it took for their mothers to become pregnant after starting to try to conceive.

This length of time is used as a way of assessing fertility - taking more than a year to conceive might indicate some kind of problem, albeit one not severe enough to prevent pregnancy altogether.

When the "quick conceivers" were compared with those taking over a year, there was no significant difference in the rate of cerebral palsy.

However, a group of babies born after IVF or ICSI, in which sperm is directly injected into the egg, had approximately double the risk of cerebral palsy compared with those conceiving quickly.

The overall risk was not high - approximately one in 176 babies born - although this represents a significant number when set against the 12,000 babies born after IVF techniques each year in the UK.

Dr Jin Liang Zhu, who led the study, said: "Our research enabled us to examine whether untreated subfertility, measured by time to pregnancy, might be the reason for the higher risk of cerebral palsy after IVF/ICSI.

"Our results showed this was not the case because, even for couples who took a year or longer to conceive, there was no statistically significant increased risk."

He said that parents should remember that the increased risk remained very low.

The other suspect in the raised cerebral palsy risk is twin pregnancies, which carry a higher rate of problems in both mother and baby, and frequently mean that babies are delivered early.

A recent study in Sweden suggested that the trend in recent years of putting just one embryo rather than two back into a woman as part of IVF was cutting the number of children born with cerebral palsy.

Professor Karl Nygren, one of the authors of that study, said that the extra risk "may have disappeared" in countries which transferred only a single embryo.

However, Professor Richard Fleming, from the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said it remained a problem.

"It's pretty clear that the issue still has substance. Even though the risks are very low for individual babies, they are high enough to deserve further research.

"Single embryo transfer will improve matters, but not solve the problem entirely."

Women using IVF more likely to conceive when stressed

Women who are stressed out when undergoing IVF may have a higher chance of falling pregnant, research suggests.
Those reporting higher stress levels had up to double the chance of a positive pregnancy test when compared with those who were more relaxed, according to a study on 217 women.
They were asked on their first appointment how much fertility-related stress they were experiencing on a scale from 1 to 10.
Those who scored 1 to 3 on the scale had a pregnancy rate of 30 per cent while those who scored 7 to 10 had a rate of 50 to 60 per cent.
Dr Robert Hunter, from Staten Island University Hospital in New York, which carried out the study, said previous research had found a similar finding. However, other studies have discovered that stress can negatively affect IVF.
'We were a little surprised by the outcome of the study - we were expecting the opposite result,' Dr Hunter said.
'It highlights the complexity of stress. There's a very complex relationship between stress pathways and the reproductive pathways.
'This is something that we're still struggling to understand and more work needs to be done.'
Dr Hunter said there was good evidence, however, that stress could actually improve how the body functions, such as the 'fight or flight' response.
Levels of key hormones rise when a person is under stress, including the adrenal hormones adrenaline and cortisol.
The team are now planning further studies, including looking at these markers of stress in the body.
Co-researcher Dr Eric Knochenhauer said questions also need to be asked about sources of stress, such as coming from a partner, worries about the costs of IVF and pressure from parents, in-laws or friends.
'Fertility-related discussions used to be something that nobody had with friends but now it's much more common,' he said.
'I think that causes stress for some patients.'
Another one of the researchers, Dr Michael Traub, said one interesting finding from the study related to older women, who reported being less stressed.
'If they are older and they think their chances of becoming a parent are very low, they might have less stress because their expectations are lower.'
All the findings held true even when factors such as depression, smoking status, age and alcohol intake were taken into account.
Tony Rutherford, chair of the British Fertility Society, said: 'This study used a questionnaire to assess stress rather than looking for biochemical markers.
'There is some evidence that increasing stress might be of benefit to patients undergoing IVF.
'In the UK we are pushing for a national trial on whether steroids improve IVF.
'It's an interesting relationship.'

IVF births result in taller kids

Children born using in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) are likely to be taller than their naturally conceived counterparts, New Zealand researchers have found.

The study by Auckland University's Liggins Institute found IVF children conceived from fresh, rather than frozen, embryos were about 2.6cm taller than non-IVF children by the age of six. The research, which examined about 200 children, found the height difference was statistically significant, even after adjusting for variables such as the parents' height.

Liggins Institiute director Wayne Cutfield said the phenomenon was most striking in girls. 'At this stage, we don't know what the catalyst for that is,' he told Radio NZ on Thursday. Mr Cutfield said appeared IVF children from fresh embyros had a different hormone profile to regular children, which could promote growth.

This could be caused by the drugs mothers took to induce ovulation during the conception process or by the culture medium the embryos were developed in for 36 hours before being transferred to the womb, he said. Mr Cutfield said another possibility was that medical workers simply picked the largest, most developed embryos because they were most likely to survive the IVF process.

He said the study showed the need for more research into children born through IVF, which has assisted in up to four million births globally over the past 32 years.

'There's been remarkable little research done on IVF children,' he said. 'There's been several studies that have looked at intelligence and cognitive function that haven't shown any differences with IVF. This is the first study that's looked very precisely at growth resultation and metabolism.'

Children Born by IVF Perform Above Average on Standardized Tests Compared to Their Peers, Study Suggests

Children conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) perform at least as well as their peers on academic tests at all ages from grade 3 to 12, according to a new University of Iowa study.
In fact, the study, published in the October issue of the journal Human Reproduction, found that children who were conceived by IVF actually scored better than age- and gender-matched peers on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Iowa Test for Educational Development (ITBS/ED).
"Our findings are reassuring for clinicians and patients as they suggest that being conceived through IVF does not have any detrimental effects on a child's intelligence or cognitive development," said lead study author Bradley Van Voorhis, M.D., UI professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Care at UI Hospitals and Clinics.
To investigate whether being conceived by IVF had long-term negative effects on children's cognitive development, Van Voorhis and colleagues compared the academic performance of 423 Iowa children, ages 8 to 17, who were conceived by IVF at UI Hospitals and Clinics with the performance of 372 age- and gender-matched peers from the same Iowa schools. The researchers also analyzed whether different characteristics of the children, parents or IVF methods affected children's test scores.
The study found that children born by IVF performed above average on standardized tests compared to their peers, and that a number of factors were linked to higher test scores, including older age of the mother, higher education levels of both parents and lower levels of divorce.
Importantly, the study also showed that different IVF procedures -- using fresh versus frozen embryos -- and different methods of insemination had no effect on children's test scores.
Although the study was not able to fully explain why children conceived by IVF performed better that their peers, Van Voorhis speculated that parents of children conceive by IVF might be older and have higher levels of education than average.
"By using age- and gender-matched children from the same classrooms as a control group to compare to our study participants, we attempted to control for any socioeconomic or environmental differences between the children born by IVF and their peers," Van Voorhis said. "But there still may have been some differences between the IVF children and the controls that we could not see from our data."
Among children born by IVF, the researchers did find a potentially concerning trend toward worse test scores for multiple births -- single babies performed better than twins, who performed better than triplets. However, this trend was not statistically significant and the triplets still did better that the average score of non-IVF children.
"This trend fits with our thinking that singleton births are healthier than multiple births, but we would need further study to find out if this trend is a real effect," Van Voorhis said.
IVF is generally considered safe but the technology has only been used for about 30 years, so there is a lack of data on long-term health outcomes for children conceived this way.
The UI study is the largest to date and followed children to an older age than previous studies. Additional strengths of the study included having a suitable control group and using the ITBS/ED, which is a widely accepted, objective measure of educational outcomes.

Building a Brighter Kid- Consider IVF

Most parents-in-waiting like to daydream that their unborn child might develop a cure for cancer or improve upon the theory of relativity — in short, save the world. Now, new research indicates that your best shot of birthing a brainy baby might be to first conceive via in vitro fertilization (IVF).
According to a University of Iowa (UI) study published in the October issue of the journal Human Reproduction, IVF babies scored better than age- and gender-matched peers on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills – a widely used test that evaluates students' abilities — and the Iowa Test for Educational Development (ITBS/ED), which is generally considered an objective measure of educational outcomes. Researchers found that children conceived by IVF score at least as well as their peers on academic tests at all ages from grade 3 to 12.
The study should soothe parents who are concerned about adverse effects of fertility treatments on babies' cognitive skills. Although IVF is considered safe, there isn't much in the way of long-term data on health outcomes. The Iowa study tracked children to an older age than previous research.
"Our findings are reassuring for clinicians and patients as they suggest that being conceived through IVF does not have any detrimental effects on a child's intelligence or cognitive development," says lead study author Bradley Van Voorhis, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Care at UI Hospitals and Clinics.
Van Voorhis and his fellow researchers measured the academic performance of 423 Iowa children, ages 8 to 17, who were conceived by IVF against the performance of 372 age- and gender-matched children from the same schools. The researchers also took into account whether different characteristics of the children, parents or IVF methods had an effect on children's test scores.
The study found that IVF children scored above average on standardized tests compared to their peers. The research also linked other factors to higher test scores, namely older age of the mother, higher education levels of both parents and lower levels of divorce.
“The likelihood is this has to do with nature and not nurture,” says Robert Stillman, medical director at Shady Grove Fertility Center in Rockville, Md., which has the country's largest fertility program. “Those fortunate enough to be able to afford IVF in an arena where there's little insurance coverage may very well have the means to provide a high level of education for their children.”
Would-be parents relying on assisted reproduction techniques are sometimes concerned that using frozen rather than fresh embryos is less than ideal. After all, aren't fresh veggies better than frozen ones? Yet the Iowa study debunked that, showing that children's test scores didn't fluctuate as a result of various methods of insemination or reliance on fresh vs. frozen embryos.
Deliberating between transferring one or more embryos? You might be interested to learn that the researchers found that single babies performed better than twins, who performed better than triplets — if only every so slightly. But even the triplets performed better than the average score of children conceived the old-fashioned way.
Still, that's no reason to rush into IVF if you don't have to. Says Stillman: “This is an argument not for doing IVF to have brighter kids but for having insurance coverage so everyone can have a child if they're having trouble getting pregnant.”

Anger at IVF treatment for jailed terrorist couple

Fernando Garcia Jodra, 40, and his girlfriend Nerea Bengoa Zarisolo, 39, are hoping to become parents despite the fact that both have been condemned to minimum jail terms of 30 years after being found guilty in 2004 of four murders.

They are held in separate prisons and are not allowed physical contact, communicating only by letters, which are checked and censored. It is their right, however, under Spanish law, to apply to have IVF treatment in jail.

If the couple conceive a child it will remain with the mother in prison until it is at least 3 years old. Angeles Pedraza, the president of the Victims of Terrorism Association, said the treatment was unacceptable.

“This is a kick in the face for the victims,” she said. “How many families have been destroyed by Eta’s barbarity? The only family unity they can enjoy is to go to the cemetery to remember their dead.”

Media reports in Spain suggested that the treatment could cost as much as $8260. Prison authorities refused to comment.