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• They Say: Coffee Makes Poor Fertility Worse

  The bad news is, Dutch researchers have found that caffeine consumption lowers the chances that a woman with poor fertility will be able to conceive. The good news is, we’re talking a lot of coffee. Read More... Posted Jul 09 2008, 04:23 PM by Hannah Tennant-Moore with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, alcohol, smoking, obesity, IVF, Conception, caffeine, coffee, in vitro fertilization, overweight, tea, chances of conception, subfertile women, cigarrettes, healthy women, worsens fertility

• Want A Boy? A Girl? How To Skew The Odds In Your Favor

  Researchers at Oxford and Exeter Universities in the UK studied over seven hundred women experiencing their first pregnancies, and found that what the subjects ate while trying to conceive had a significant impact on the sex of their babies. Read More... Posted Apr 25 2008, 01:33 PM by asflutz with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, Conception, old wives' tales, Oxford University, choosing sex of your baby, Exeter University

• Pregcellent: Vacant Womb For Rent

  First off, I'd like to say that anyone who goes into being a surrogate strictly for the money has chosen a very challenging way to make a buck, because being pregnant is no picnic. But as this Newsweek article on the lives of surrogates points out, many women are also motivated by a desire to help others and to contribute something meaningful to the lives of couples who want kids. And the stereotype of the rich woman who wants a baby but not the stretch marks and thus hires a surrogate is strange also, since I can't imagine what would be more challenging than entrusting another person with your offspring before they are even born. So I doubt that one is founded much in reality either. The article, which chronicles the stories of a number of women who became surrogates, touches on the controversies surrounding the practice... Read More... Posted Apr 02 2008, 06:33 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, parents, mothers, laws, Europe, infertility, moms, Conception, sperm, stereotypes, childrearing, pregcellent, newsweek, gestation, egg, DNA, surrogates, contracts, couples

• Friends Think Depressed Surrogate Mom to 8 is Crazy

  There are a couple of things going on in this story of a surrogate mom that are just, nicely put, very interesting. First, she is trying to get pregnant for the eighth time on behalf of someone other than herself. Wow, eight pregnancies is a lot of babies for any woman to bear. (Please don't confuse her with the surrogate mother to 12. Twelve!) The other thing is that this mom who has made a second career as a baby-haver is  43 years old and things are getting tough and she's starting to get depressed. She wanted to bear a sibling for the little girl, Isobel, whom she gave birth to in 2006, but nine weeks in to that pregnancy -- her egg and the 51-year-old father's sperm -- she miscarried. Her family is starting to worry. But the most striking thing for me ...   Read More... Posted Jan 22 2008, 10:35 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: child, childless, child birth, Conception, controversy, surrogacy, surrogate pregnancy, child rearing, surrogate mother, surrogate mothers, conceiving

• Woman Conceives Twins, Miscarries One, Still Gives Birth to Two Babies

  What is going on with these U.K. women's hair-trigger ovaries shooting out eggs no matter what the circumstances? Remember the non-twin twins last year? Well, another woman there defied the "you can't get pregnant when you're pregnant" caveat and, after conceiving twins, went ahead and got pregnant again ... while pregnant! Here's what happened, according to the Daily Mail: Read More... Posted Jan 14 2008, 07:40 AM by Madeline Holler with | with no comments Filed under: twins, multiple births, birth control, Conception, unplanned pregnancy, age difference in couples, superfetation, conceiving, non-twin twins

• Straight To IVF, Do Not Pass Go

  When I was trying my damndest to get knocked up and it wasn't happening, I got to go see the fertility specialist. I sat down and we reviewed my charts and my tests and my not-being-pregnant-ness, and he make murmuring sounds. Then he put down his pen and looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You may need to go straight to IVF." "Wha?" I stammered. "Well, when we don't know what's wrong, sometimes the easiest way is just to do IVF," he replied. Turns out he was just ahead of the curve.  Slate has a bit on how IVF is the surest and quickest way sometimes for the infertile to conceive. For a while it has been considered a last resort... Read More... Posted Nov 22 2007, 12:08 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: twins, IVF, infertility, Slate, Conception, multiples, insurance companies, physicians

• Want a Boy? Getting Fat Might Help

  It’s long been know that slightly more boys are born every year than girls, but that gap is shrinking and scientists don’t know why. So some of them looked into it. They figured diet and obesity might have something to do with the fact that the number of girls and boys born each year was beginning to even out. What they found was kind of the opposite.       Read More... Posted Sep 26 2007, 07:36 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, research study, obesity, girls, Conception, gwyneth paltrow, boys, weight gain

• Pregnant Like a Girl: More Stress = More Girl Babies?

  I have a lot of questions and opinions about fertility and miscarriage and women trying to conceive in the here and now. This is probably highly annoying to the women I know who've endured endless egg-producing shots and surgeries and hormones considering I got pregnant (padow!) on try number one. My only expertise is knowing a startling number of women who have gone through the unique stress of fertility treatment, and given all that they've gone through physically and emotionally, it makes me wonder how we are living today has impacted our bodies. It also makes me wonder how we are living today impacts our fertility and the fetus once we have conceived. According to some newly released research, stress of the mother plays a slight but measurable part in the sex of that zygote inside. Here's what it says: Read More... Posted Sep 25 2007, 01:58 PM by Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) with | with no comments Filed under: pregnancy, stress, Conception, fertility issues, stress during pregnancy

• Study: Allergies Don't Affect Fertility in Women

  Good news! A huge new long-term study just released shows that there is no decrease in fertility rates among women who have asthma, hay fever or eczema when compared to women who don't suffer those allergic diseases. This is the reverse of what was previously suspected. About a bazillion women (or 491,516 to be exact) ages 15-to-44 were studied over a 10-year period. Of those, 13% had asthma, 14% had eczema and 12% had hay fever (and some had two or even three of these diseases), and it was found that there was no correlation between the fertility of women with allergies versus women without them, except that women with these conditions were actually slightly more fertile than women without. So there! And now, strap on your, uh, inhaler, and go for it! Posted Apr 19 2007, 10:05 AM by Karen Murphy with | with no comments Filed under: health, pregnancy, infertility, Conception, studies, fertility, allergies, asthma, exzema, hay fever

• Dear Men: Sorry, We Can Make Babies Without You. Signed, The Women

  Woohoo!  Okay, men, don't tell me you didn't know this was coming, but apparently you're about to become obsolete: a transplant technique is being devised that grows human cells from bone marrow. There are a number of advantages to this, namely: 1. It avoids the ethical dilemma and the endless debate posed by using embryonic stem cells. (Take that, George Bush!) 2. It's groundbreaking in terms of female infertility. 3. It's also groundbreaking in terms of men, affording men opportunities to become fathers who might not be able to otherwise (if they're rendered sterile by chemotherapy, for instance). 4. Same-sex couples won't need to line up at the sperm bank. Or beg eggs on a street corner. 5. And, well, the whole "men are redundant" thing. Don't get me wrong, I adore men and I certainly don't see them being phased out. At least, not yet. But with this new way developing of conceiving without them, and new vibrators being invented all the time, seriously, what's the point? Ladies, are you with me? Tired of having to put the seat down all the time? Imagine a world where you wouldn't have to...     Posted Apr 14 2007, 02:45 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Conception, artificial insemination, same-sex couples, stem cells, men

• Parents Tell Children They Used Donor Eggs

  Honey? Mommy and Daddy have something to tell you.  Remember last week when we showed you those pictures of how babies are made?  No don't run away, honey.  It's natural to be embarrassed so don't worry.  Well, remember how the man inseminates the woman and fertilizes her eggs?  What?  Yes. That is what ducks do too.. well.. sort of.  Anyway, Mommy and Daddy used a donor egg to make you.  Not dinner.  D O N O R.  That means someone who gives something voluntarily to someone else. This conversation is very likely to have occurred in many homes in California according to a recent study,in which 141 couples who used donor sperm or eggs to conceive reported their methods for informing children of their origins.  Parents used a variety of approaches beginning when their children were 3 or 4 years of age to either plant the seed (as it were) of knowledge and reveal the whole truth over time, or to sit an older child down and explain it all once the child was old enough to understand. Truth in parenting is de rigeur these days and generally it seems like a great idea. And while I don't have similar information to share with my kids, I wonder if I'd choose to share the story of the nice donor who helped give you life, or consider it too much information and leave it at that.  I'm pretty sure I'd choose the latter.  How about you? Posted Mar 31 2007, 02:22 PM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Conception, telling children, donor egg, telling the truth, donor sperm

• Obese Couples Have Difficulty Conceiving, Study Says

  With all the attention lately on fat kids, I guess it was time for the media to give them a break and concentrate on the parents instead.  And concentrate it did:  apparently April Barnum, at 420 pounds and mother of her recent surprise baby, should have had a tough time conceiving, according to this new large-scale Danish study.  The study measured how long it took couples to conceive after they began trying in earnest to have a baby, and their findings showed that if both partners were obese, the chances of conception taking longer than a year were almost three times as long as for "normal" weight couples.  Whoa!  The researchers are now blithely suggesting that overweight and obese couples simply lose weight if they're having difficulty conceiving.  Easier said than done.  I've got about ten pounds I'd like to shake; I can't imagine if it was more like 100 and if my whole future was at stake to boot. Posted Mar 07 2007, 12:06 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, obesity, infertility, Conception

• 5 Best Cities to Conceive a Baby

  So let's say you have unlimited energy, funds, and a desire to make a baby (read the previous Babble piece for where to actually give birth to the kid). Where would a fertile type be advised to proceed? Well, Fit Pregnancy neglected to cover this, so we'll have to go with our collective gut.  Tell me if I've left off any of your favorites.  Which cities foster an environment most conducive to conception? 1. Edmonton, Alberta I'd say first, it's really helpful if the weather outside is frightful.  Remember Dean's "Baby, It's Cold Outside?" In that wonderful song, he argues with the reluctant girl to stay inside where it's warm and the fire is burning and the drinks are nice and refreshing.  That old smoothie knew exactly what he was about. Nothing doing outside? Don't worry, darling, it's niiiiiice and warm in heeere.  Sit by the fire, Little Kitten. Read More... Posted Jan 25 2007, 03:10 PM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: chicago, Fairbanks, Edmonton, Bellingham, North Dakota, Conception, Fertile Valley, Western Washington University