The smart sperm

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Published on Wednesday, 06 February 2013 10:49

Danish researchers have published a curious study, according to which the spermatozoids are able to make some calculations to get to the egg.

Experts from Denmark have decided to follow the behavior of spermatozoids in a liquid medium, and found out that their movement is controlled by the concentration of calcium in the environment, which is particularly higher near the egg. In order to discover it the sperm cells must be able to notice any changes in the environment.

A woman with donor heart gave birth to a girl, conceived through IVF

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Published on Friday, 01 February 2013 13:19

A 39-year old resident of Argentina, who had underwent heart transplantation 14 years ago, gave birth to a healthy girl Emily, who was conceived with the help of in vitro fertilization.

This is the first such case in the history of medicine. Usually, pregnancy and childbirth are contraindicated even after less difficult and dangerous operations of transplantation. One of the reasons is that the impact of immunosuppressive agents, ie drugs that prevent organ rejection, which influence on the development and the health of a child, is not well studied yet. In the case of transplanted heart the risks for the health of the mother and of the fetus grow significantly – during the pregnancy the amount of blood in the body increases by 40%, which significantly enlarge the load on the body.

Surrogacy in France. The "circular of Tobira"

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Published on Tuesday, 05 February 2013 13:53

French Minister of Justice Christian Tobira has came forward with an initiative to simplify the procedure of obtaining of citizenship for children born from surrogate mothers abroad. Ms. Tobira promised that the document will be published in the near future.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande said that the text of the document, which is called "circular of Tobira", in any case is not a "recognition of the surrogate motherhood," for which he "sets firmly against."

The need to simplify the process of naturalization of children, born from surrogate mothers outside the territory of France, is long overdue. Surrogacy in the country is prohibited by law, so couples who suffer from infertility, are forced to use the services of foreign surrogate mothers. The most annoying thing is that after the successful completion of the program, ie after the birth of the long-awaited baby, parents have a problem to bring him/her into the country and get the documents, proving the child’s citizenship.

Deterioration in male fertility: new data

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Published on Thursday, 31 January 2013 12:59

Not long ago I wrote about a study, conducted by French scientists, that showed a constant decline in sperm quality of French men. Let me remind you: for 17 years, until 2005, there was a significant and prolonged decline in sperm concentration of 32.2% at a constant rate of 1.9% per year. For men aged of 35, the concentration of sperm (or the number of sperm in the semen volume) has decreased from an average 73.6 million sperm per ml in 1989 to 49.9 million sperm per ml in 2005. In addition, a significant drop in the number of normally formed sperm (33.4%) in the same period has been noted.

There is some new data. Specialists from the University of Murcia (Spain) compared the semen samples of 273 men aged from 18 to 23 years, collected in the period of 2001 – 2002, with the indices of 215 students of the same age 10 years later.