Twins, once a rarity to marvel over, are now a common part of American culture, thanks in large part to increased use of reproductive technology. Twins are conceived naturally just 2 percent of the time; for those who get pregnant with fertility treatments the rate is more than 40 percent.

But as adorable as many of us consider twins, this dramatic rise poses serious health risks, and there are mounting efforts to curb it.

Read the article: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/30/134960899/taming-ivfs-twin-trend

OLYMPIA — Legislation that would make Washington the seventh state to allow surrogate mothers to be compensated for delivering babies continued its path toward the Senate floor without any changes or amendments in committee, despite Republicans’ best efforts.

Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, and his conservative counterparts on the Senate’s Government Operations Committee proposed 25 amendments ranging from mundane typographical corrections to the bill that passed through the House to ensuring that the surrogate mother and parents were United States and Washington citizens. All were voted down 4-2 along party lines.
http://www.chronline.com/news/article_4ee4fa2e-5576-11e0-bccc-001cc4c03286.html

LAT Times: Scientists have grown sperm cells in a dish from the testicular tissue of mice, the journal Nature reported Wednesday.

The team, led by Takuya Sato of the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine in Yokohama, Japan, grew healthy sperm in the laboratory and used them to produce fertile offspring, according to the study.

The discovery is a nifty technical feat.  For decades, scientists had tried without success to maintain spermatogenesis (the multistage process by which spermatogonial stem cells grow to become sperm) in mammals in a lab setting.

Read the article: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-sperm-in-a-dish-20110323,0,388660.story

A popular new hair care process, commonly referred to as “Brazilian Blowout”  is under scrutiny for toxicity claims, as well as possibly causing infertility.

Read the article: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/03/18/chemical-blowout-frizz-formaldehyde-infertility

Blog by Kate Korman, freelance writer

Tick Tock: My Egg Freezing Experience (And the Desire to Control the Biological Clock)

I’m twenty-eight. I won’t pretend to be wise. I won’t tell you why you’re not married with kids. I strongly believe that every woman has her own path. But here’s one thing I do know: I’m more fertile now than I’ll ever be, and I’m definitely not ready for motherhood.

Read the rest: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-korman/tick-tock-my-egg-freezing_b_834302.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTjHLF3xKWo

Very sweet and touching time-lapse video of first four years. Amazing what can be done with all those baby pictures these days!

From the developer/father:  This is still a work-in-progress with many more photos yet to be processed. The current video is created from 71 photos with morphing transitions performed using the WinMorph software: http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/

The music is “Medieval” by Manolo Camp http://www.manolocamp.net/ and may be downloaded from here http://www.opsound.org/artist/manolocamp/ It is licensed using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Asia One readers voice their opinions about a report on a group of Vietnamese women who were rescued in Thailand from a gang running a surrogate-baby racket, some of them lured with false promises of good jobs. Most condemn this shocking and illegal business.

Read more: http://news.asiaone.com/News/Mailbox/Story/A1Story20110311-267518.html

Sometimes, you have to look to the past to find guidance for the future. Most of us have a milestone that helped define us, and infertility was mine.

Okay – So this is a far stretch from that adorably heartwarming poem many of us all know and love, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Kindergarten,” written by Robert Fulgham.

The tumultuous journey of infertility and the unknowing innocence of 5-year-olds learning how to share their glue sticks with one another — could they be any further apart on the spectrum of life?

Perhaps not, and here’s why:

Read the rest:  http://narragansett.patch.com/articles/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-from-infertility-2