Recent Advances In Medically Assisted Conception

This book results from a study by a committee of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council's Board on Agriculture. The committee examined the scientific foundations of medically assisted conception and developed an agenda for basic research in reproductive and developmental biology that would contribute to advances in the clinical and agricultural practice of in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. The volume also discusses some barriers to progress in research and ways of lowering them, and explains the scientific issues important to ethical decision making.

This book reviews important advances that have made the field of assisted reproduction a dynamic subspecialty and provides insight into other exciting areas of research that will continue to revolutionize the field in the future. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) involves the use of medical techniques to tackle infertility. ART includes the usage of procedures such as ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), IVF (in vitro fertilization), cryopreservation of embryos or gametes, use of fertility medication and so on. This book aims to highlight the most recent advances in assisted conception and highlights ongoing and potential future of this field. This book consists of 42 chapters, which include individualized controlled ovarian stimulation, Luteal phase stimulation, role of adjuvants in controlled ovarian hyperstimulation, endometrial receptivity, procedure in assisted reproductive technology, genetic testing in male infertility, medical management of male infertility, color Doppler in infertility, fertility-enhancing surgeries in ART, recurrent pregnancy loss, regenerative medicine in infertility, oocyte quality, morphokinetics in ART, co-culture techniques in ART, triple parenting etc. The book is a comprehensive learning manual providing important information for both scientists and clinicians. Every chapter is focused on a specific topic and uses international scientific standards of evidence-based medicine.

Offers a comprehensive guide to assisted reproductive technology surveillance, describing its history, global variations, and best practices.

This new edition of Sarah Franklin’s classic monograph on the development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) includes two entirely new chapters reflecting on the relevance of the book’s findings in the context of the past two decades and providing a ‘state-of-the-art’ review of the field today. Over the past 25 years, both the assisted conception industry and the academic field of reproductive studies have grown enormously. IVF, in particular, is belatedly becoming recognised as one of the most influential technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a far-reaching set of implications that have to date been underestimated, understudied and under-reported. This pioneering text was the first to explore the emergence of commercial IVF in the United Kingdom, where the technique was originally developed. During the 1980s, the British Parliament devised a unique system of comprehensive national regulation of assisted reproduction amidst fractious public and media debate over IVF and embryo research. Franklin chronicles these developments and explores their significance in relation to classic anthropological debates about the meanings of kinship, gender and the 'biological facts' of parenthood. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with women and couples undergoing IVF, as well as ethnographic fieldword in early IVF clinics, the book explores the unique demands of the IVF technique. In richly detailed chapters, it documents the ‘topsy-turvy’ world of IVF, and how the experience of undergoing IVF changes its users in ways they had not anticipated. Franklin argues that such experiences reveal a crucial feature of translational biomedical procedures more widely – namely, that these are ‘hope technologies’ that paradoxically generate new uncertainties and risks in the very space of their supposed resolution. The final chapter closely engages with the ‘hope technology’ concept, as well as the idea of ‘having to try’ and uses these frames to link contemporary reproductive studies to core sociological and anthropological arguments about economy, society and technology. In the context of rapid fertility decline and huge growth in the fertility industry, this volume is even more relevant today than when it was first published at the dawn of what Franklin calls the era of 'iFertility'. Embodied Progress is an essential read for all social science academics and students with an interested in the burgeoning new field of reproductive studies. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners working in the fields of reproductive health, biomedicine and policy.

By all indicators, the reproductive health of Americans has been deteriorating since 1980. Our nation is troubled by rates of teen pregnancies and newborn deaths that are worse than almost all others in the Western world. Science and Babies is a straightforward presentation of the major reproductive issues we face that suggests answers for the public. The book discusses how the clash of opinions on sex and family planning prevents us from making a national commitment to reproductive health; why people in the United States have fewer contraceptive choices than those in many other countries; what we need to do to improve social and medical services for teens and people living in poverty; how couples should "shop" for a fertility service and make consumer-wise decisions; and what we can expect in the futureâ€"featuring interesting accounts of potential scientific advances.

This document contains papers on the following topics: a review of medically assisted reproductive technologies; a socio-historical examination of the development of in vitro fertilization and related assisted reproductive techniques; the professions involved in new reproductive technologies; legislation, inquiries, and guidelines on infertility treatment and surrogacy/preconception contracts; an overview of donor insemination; issues and responses to artificial insemination; the social meanings of donor insemination; lesbian women and donor insemination; self-insemination in Canada; the conceptual framework of donor insemination; and a bibliography of artificial insemination.