Credit Crunch May Make Couples Delay Trying To Start A Family, Which May Lead To More Fertility Problems

Leading UK fertility expert Professor Brian Lieberman has warned of an increased risk of fertility problems as more couples delay starting a family due to the credit crunch.

With the cost of food, petrol and household bills rising at an alarming rate, IVF specialist Professor Lieberman says the added financial burden of having a baby may prove too much for potential parents. He is concerned that the credit squeeze will lead many couples to postpone starting a family - either naturally or with the help of IVF - well into their late thirties and early forties.

The cost of raising a child is now estimated at more than £100,000 over 21 years.* Would-be-parents have named money worries and the need to remain in the job market as the main reasons for putting off trying for a baby.

Professor Lieberman - credited with the establishment of the UK's first NHS IVF centre and founder of Manchester Fertility Services - predicts a sharp rise in the number of older women requiring IVF treatment after choosing to wait until they're financially secure before trying to conceive. Couples are being faced with the dilemma of bearing the financial weight of trying for a child now - or spending even more money on fertility treatment in a couple of years.

He said: "Fertility falls dramatically for women as they grow older. Women in their early twenties are generally twice as fertile as women in their late thirties, with the most significant decline in fertility beginning during the mid-thirties.

"We are predicting a steep rise in the number of women requiring IVF and other forms of fertility treatment, as women delay conception to further their careers.

"Having a baby can be costly, but I would urge women not to wait too long as their chances of conceiving will drastically reduce with age. Living on a tight budget can be stressful but missing out on the chance to have a family is even more traumatic. The effects of the credit crunch are already being felt, with an increasing number of would-be parents paying for fertility treatment on credit."

To date, more than 3,000 babies have been born thanks to the skill and dedication of Professor Brian Lieberman and his team at Manchester Fertility Services, which is based at Bridgewater Hospital in South Manchester.

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Israeli_gay_couple_gets_a_son/articleshow/3724754.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Israeli_gay_couple_gets_a_son_in_India/articleshow/msid-3724754,curpg-2.cms
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=4856004b-ee00-419b-93ef-59d7e5b0f674
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1207409
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Coffee and Getting Pregnant: Can Coffee Keep You From Getting Pregnant?

Does caffeine affect fertility? ) When we're feeling tired and stressed at work, a cup of coffee packed with caffeine can help get us over the afternoon (or morning) hump. That cup o' joy is great for our co-workers -- we'll snap at them less! But what about our dreams of getting pregnant?

A recent study implies that too much coffee can have a negative effect on your fertility, especially if you already are dealing with fertility issues. The study looked at couples who went through IVF treatment, but later went on to try to conceive naturally. The study showed that drinking four or more cups of coffee a day reduced a couple's chance of conceiving by 26%.

Now, four cups is a lot of coffee. Most researchers say that if you stick to less than 300 mg of caffeine a day, you'll be safe. That's about two to three 5 oz. cups of coffee (depending on how strong the brew is).

Also, it's important to consider that previous studies failed to find a connection between caffeine and fertility. The topic is certainly up for debate.

Some studies have also found a possible link between miscarriage and coffee drinking. As with infertility, the studies that warn against caffeine say less than 300 mg a day should be OK.

You don't have to cut out coffee completely. Just don't drink too much.

Ovarian Test: False Hope for Aging Ladies?

Here's something that will put you off your omelet. A UK firm called Lifestyle Choices has started selling a fertility test called Plan Ahead which purports to tell women approximately how many eggs they have left in their ovaries. Though it won't provide you with an exact number, it measures 3 different hormones to give you an "assessment."

More and more women are putting off having children until their 30s and 40s. Yet a growing body of research shows that female fertility begins to decline rapidly in the mid-30s -- leaving some women with a difficult choice: bearing children earlier or risking infertility later on.

Lifestyle Choices, a firm based in Sheffield, U.K., has begun selling a consumer test that it claims will help women make this important decision. The test, which went on the market last month, assesses the number of eggs that a woman has left in her ovaries, by measuring three different hormones.

However, some experts say that the results of these kinds of tests can be unreliable -- and therefore give women a false sense of security about delaying childbearing.

Women are born with a set number of eggs -- a number that declines with age, first slowly, then rapidly after the mid-30s. The rate of decline varies from woman to woman -- some can easily get pregnant in their 40s, while for others it's difficult or even impossible.

"Some women start to go into menopause in their 30s," says Rogerio A. Lobo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University in New York City. "Without some kind of clinical testing, or a suggestive family history, that [life stage] is impossible to guess."

Women can go to their doctor for blood or ultrasound tests that will give a sense of their fertility status. But women in the U.K. may have a new option now: a mail-order test. For £179 (Rs 15,000), they can order the test kit, go to a doctor's office for a blood test, then send the sample to a lab for analysis. Their blood is analyzed for the levels of three different hormones, which predict the number of eggs a woman has available. To interpret the results further, hormone levels are compared with the average hormone levels for the woman's age group.

"As tests go, these are as close to the best things we have out there, but there are still a lot of questions and a lot of caveats," says Lobo, who regularly measures the same three hormones in his clinic. "It can give you some information -- but it's not 100 percent."

Kim Thornton, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, thinks "the issue with all ovarian reserve testing is that the test cannot necessarily tell you that it's okay to delay childbearing. There are a lot of false negatives." An abnormal result gives a good indication that a woman may have fertility problems; but a normal result does not guarantee that a woman has several years of fertile years ahead, Thornton says.

Indeed, experts say the only way to really gauge the accuracy of the U.K. test is with a long-term clinical trial showing that women who get a "normal" result from the test can get pregnant.

Stuart Gall, commercial director of BioFusion, the parent-company of Lifestyle Choices, says the company has run some clinical trials; however, for proprietary reasons, they are not releasing the results.

The problem is, many doctors think this will give women false hope that they can delay their childbearing years, when the rate of egg decline actually varies from woman to woman. The test isn't approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at this time, so if your wife/girlfriend is starting to pressure you for that bundle of joy, you won't have to deal with this kind of data just yet.

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What a shame! The red waters seen in the pictures is Blood. At this time of year, there is a brutal, grotesque, bloody slaughter in the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark. Denmark - A country supposedly 'civilized' & part of "THE EUROPEAN UNION ". Many people do not hear about this attack on life... so no real protests have been registered. This bloody slaughter to attend Moz to 'show' entering adulthood(!) Is absolutely incredible and no one in Denmark has moved a finger to prevent this barbarism that is committed against the Calderon - an intelligent dolphin who has the peculiarity of approaching people out of sheer curiosity. Please share this post to raise awareness against this senseless crime against defenseless dolphins!