Latest News from Fertility Concerns

(Previous News Articles)

STOP PRESS! Edinburgh fertility support group will start at Boroughloch Medical Practice, 1 Meadow Place, Edinburgh on Thursday 25 February 2010 from 6.30pm - 7.30pm. This will be a free confidential support group and is designed as a drop-in service for anyone interested in talking with professionals and other women/men having conception problems or generally wanting advice on healthy conception. Please e-mail myfertilitysupport@hotmail.com for further information.
Mind Body Fertility Programme arrives Edinburgh. The Mind Body Programme for Fertility offers a range of techniques, including relaxation strategies and cognitive restructuring, to help reduce both the psychological and physiological symptoms of stress and increase the chances of conceiving. For more information visit www.mindbodyfertility.co.uk or contact Juliet 0131 551 3171 or Seeta 07507 862 485.
Saturday 13 June 2009. Daisy Network Conference, London. If you need egg donation to start or add to your family because of Premature Ovarian Failure or in laywoman’s terms, early menopause, then Daisy Network’s conference is for you. For more information visit www.daisynetwork.org.uk
Funding for fertility. Getting funding for NHS fertility treatment remains a post-code lottery and it is often difficult to find out exactly what your local Primary Care Trust will and won’t fund. Infertility Network UK (INUK) has done some truly ground breaking work in this area. They have now set up a new section called Funding for Fertility on their web site www.infertilitynetworkuk.com
Monday 23rd March 2009. Kisspeptin offers new hope for infertile women. Scientists at Imperial College London have found that the administration of a recently discovered protein called 'Kisspeptin' could 'restore fertility' for some women whose infertility was caused by the cessation of their menstrual periods and form the basis for a new fertility treatment. For more information visit: http://www.ivf.net/ivf/kiss_hormone_to_give_new_hope_to_infertile_women-o4061.html
Friday 06 August 2008. Fertility treatments 'no benefit'. Two common treatments for fertility problems do not work, an Aberdeen University-led study suggests. UK guidelines recommend the drug Clomid and artifical insemination for couples having trouble conceiving despite no known cause for their infertility. But trials of 580 women in Scotland found the treatments were no better than trying to get pregnant naturally, the British Medical Journal reports.
16 February 2008. Acupuncture may increase IVF success rates. A team of doctors from the University of Maryland and the University of Amsterdam have published a report in the British Medical Journal claiming that acupuncture could increase IVF success rates by as much as 65 per cent. They reviewed seven different studies published since 2002, comprising trials involving 1,266 women undergoing IVF treatment and by taking all the information from the studies concluded that women who had acupuncture in conjunction with IVF were 65 per cent more likely to have a successful embryo transfer compared to those that had no treatment or were given fake acupuncture. The cost of acupuncture treatments is around £50 per session as compared to the £4,000 to £6,000 cost of one IVF cycle. This means that it is potentially cost effective to introduce acupuncture alongside IVF.
21 February 2008. New Study Shows SET Can Improve Success and Reduce Mutliple Births. A new study published in the BJOG journal shows that using single embryo blastocyst transfer improved success rates and cut down on multiple births in a select group of women.
17 March 2008. Concerns over decreasing male fertility rates. Two new studies have identified factors that could be causing a decline in male fertility. In one study research published in the journal Fertility and Sterility on the anti-impotence drug Viagra concluded that men taking the drug could be damaging their sperm and lowering their ability to conceive. Another study published in the environmental journal the Ends Report suggests that pollution from chemicals such as dioxin can lower a man's sperm count.
17 March 2008. First ever drug for male infertility. New hope has been given to infertile couples in Australia where Menevit, the first ever drug for male infertility, has been developed. It contains antioxidants and works by acting on free radicals that fragment the sperm, the main cause of infertility. In a preliminary study of 60 infertile men the rate of pregnancy was increased significantly but larger clinical trials are required before the drug can be merited.