Now, a test to predict successful pregnancy

Scientists have developed a new test to predict which of a woman's eggs are likely to lead to a successful pregnancy.

At present, the only way of deciding which eggs to use in the IVF (In-vitro Fertilisation) process is to examine them through a microscope. This gives doctors little chance of picking up the kind of abnormalities that cause the procedure to fail.

In the ground-breaking trial, conducted by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, the test accurately predicted whether a woman's egg was normal in 90 percent of cases.

The procedure involves removing waste cells, known as polar bodies, from the egg, which are produced shortly before and after fertilisation, to see if they have the correct number of chromosomes.

If the polar bodies have the correct number, so does the egg and this improves the chance of implanting in the womb and creating a successful pregnancy.

Scientists at the University of Bonn and the Sismer centre in Bologna tested polar bodies from 226 fertilised eggs from 41 women. Only one in four eggs from this group of women was normal.

The test can be completed within 12 to 13 hours, meaning it can fit into a normal cycle of IVF.

Bruce Lee Ping Pong

Air pollution can stop woman getting pregnant through IVF

Excessive exposure to air pollution might increase the chance of In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) failure, a new study has found.

A team of fertility experts tested more than 7,000 women undergoing IVF in various American hospitals and analysed the results over seven years - from 2000 to 2007, telegraph.co.uk reported.

Dr Duanping Liao, a professor of epidemiology at Penn State College of Medicine, Pennsylvania, who worked on the research, said: "Numerous studies have consistently shown a relationship between air pollution and human health, ranging from mortality, cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions.

"In the process of searching for the mechanisms responsible for the above associations, we, and others, have reported significant links between air pollution and inflammation and increased blood clotting.

"These intermediate factors are also associated with reproductive health."

Experts say that burning of fossil fuels and diesel are the main causes of nitrogen dioxide production.

The researchers worked out daily pollution concentrations for each patient during the entire IVF process and pregnancy.

Dr Liao added: "Since IVF is a well controlled and highly timed process, we have a much better handle on the assessment of the time of exposures to elevated air pollutants in relationship to fertilisation, pregnancy, and delivery.

"Therefore, the IVF population coupled with detailed assessment of air pollution exposures may provide us an ideal situation to investigate the potential health effects of air quality on human reproduction."

Golf shot of the century!

At the Master’s every year they have a practice round (every tournament does).

The 16th hole is a par three with water from the Tee box all the way to green.

The tradition during the practice round is for the pro’s to try and skip their ball

over the water onto the green.

The one’s who don’t try to skip their ball over the water get booed.

This is a clip of Vijay Singh skipping his ball over the water on Hole #16 during the practice round.

A Great Story In Photos

Oil spill hits 60th day

Saturday will mark 60 days since the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and beginning of one of the worst oil spills in history. On Friday, signaling a shift in strategy to fight against the ruptured well in the Gulf, the Coast Guard began ramping up efforts to capture oil closer to shore. Adm. Thad Allen said an estimated 2,000 private boats in the so-called "vessels of opportunity" program will be more closely linked through a tighter command and control structure to direct them to locations less than 50 miles offshore to skim the oil. Allen, the point man for the federal response to the spill, previously had said surface containment efforts would be concentrated much farther offshore. Estimates of the oil being siphoned from the well a mile below the Gulf are growing. Allen said more than 1.2 million gallons was sucked up to containment vessels Thursday.

Autism in a test tube? Research suggests link between IVF treatments and autism

In a recent study, Dr. Ditza Zachor of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine reported a strong link between IVF and mild to moderate cases of autism. Her findings were presented last month at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia.

According to her research at the Autism Center at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Israel, which Dr. Zachor directs, 10.5% of 461 children diagnosed with a disorder on the autism spectrum were conceived using IVF, a significantly higher number than the 3.5% autism rate in the general Israeli population.

Other factors in play

While the study doesn't draw any definitive conclusions, it presents some urgent questions, says Dr. Zachor. "It's too early to make a serious deduction based on that evidence alone," she says, citing other birth-related factors in her study, such as low birth rate and prematurity. Dr. Zachor's ongoing research will attempt to separate out these risk factors to come up with more precise numbers for autism and other prenatal conditions in IVF.

The key may be "imprinting," a biochemical procedure during cell division which determines which genes will be selected or "expressed" in the embryo. Research into epigenetics -- changes in gene expression that occur without a change in the DNA sequence -- suggest that the malformations may be caused by imprinting abnormalities introduced into the embryo while it's in a test tube environment, says Dr. Zachor. One such disorder linked with IVF appears to be Angelman syndrome.

However, Dr. Zachor does not want to discourage infertile couples from undergoing IVF implantation, which most often results in a healthy child.

Age-appropriate fertility treatments

Dr. Zachor notes that mothers in her study who had IVF tended to be older ― with a median age of 32.6 years. Also significantly, nearly 4% of the children with autism were born prematurely, and about 5% of those had a low birth weight. In the general population, only about 1% of all newborns are delivered with a low birth weight.

Aware of these risks, however, health practitioners may be able to intervene and find ways to avoid the problems, the researcher says. For example, they might recommend that IVF treatments be delayed for a longer period, despite any psychological stress this might cause to would-be parents. Some researchers believe that unassisted fertilization is a better way to avoid negative health effects.

"Many infertile couples choose this procedure, and they need to know whether there is a risk of autism," concludes Dr. Zachor. She stresses, however, that most women who undergo fertility treatments should not be scared away from IVF procedures: the majority of children born using IVF do not have autism, and most children who have autism were not conceived using IVF.