Recently, Time magazine, wrote a series of articles about infertility, fertility treatments, and the future of babies as medical advancements allow couples more opportunities for conception. One of these articles discussed the creation of “designer babies” from in vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
The medical community and the public are concerned that with advances in PGD technology, we …
There is an emerging ethical morass in the field of reproductive medicine: what to do when patients seeking to get pregnant select embryos with DNA that could lead to a disease or disability. Should clinicians’ desire to help their patients have children override concerns about possibly doing harm to those children? And what about cases in which patients end up …
Researchers in Brazil are developing a new software tool that may help physicians and embryologists choose the best embryos for transfer after an IVF cycle. The computer technology is supposed to recognize 24 characteristics of embryos, some of which are not detectable to embryologists using even the most sophisticated microscopes. These characteristics include the size of the embryo, the texture …
As the technology for preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) of embryos has advanced over the past 10 years, it has changed the way we approach in vitro fertilization (IVF). PGS involves genetically testing cells that have been biopsied from embryos made from an IVF cycle to make sure that the embyros we transfer into the uterus are chromosomally normal . PGS …
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is recommending that all women, regardless of ethnic background, be offered genetic carrier screening prior to pregnancy. In a new Committee Opinion, ACOG states “Carrier screening and counseling ideally should be performed before pregnancy because this enables couples to learn about their reproductive risk and consider the most complete range of reproductive …
Genetic testing for inherited genetic conditions is an important component of preconception planning, to assist in assessing the risk of genetic disease in a child, as well as anticipating the management of a woman’s reproductive care. Traditional methods of carrier screening have focused on pan ethnic screening for conditions including cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy, whereas other conditions, including …
Women expecting a baby or planning a pregnancy are being offered a fast-growing array of tests to check if they are carriers for hundreds of mostly rare genetic diseases, as reported in the January 6th issue of the Wall Street Journal.
Such genetic testing, called carrier screening, has long been targeted mainly at people of certain ethnic groups such as …
Ar article in the February 4, 2014 edition of the New York Times outlines ethical questions facing couples who have a family history of a genetic disease and choose to have preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) with transfer of unaffected embryos (non-carriers.
Genetic testing of embryos has been around for more than a decade, but its use has soared in recent …
This is one of a series of news items from abstracts of studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as complied by Dr. David Meldrum, Scientific Director of Reproductive Partners. We appreciate the enormous amount of work it takes to compile and comment on these abstracts.
The occurrence of a serious genetic disease …
According to a survey of 26 sperm banks reported in the July 2010 edition of Fertility and Sterility, sperm banks vary considerably in their practices of genetic screening of donors.
Cystic fibrosis carrier screening, chromosome analyses, and hemoglobin evaluations are performed on the majority of sperm donor applicants. Tay-Sachs disease carrier screening is performed on most donors with Jewish heritage but …
