Category Archives: Embryology

Embryology

Couples being denied IVF treatment if one of them has a child from a previous relationship – Telegraph.co.uk

Couples in two thirds of NHS regions are being denied IVF treatment if one of them has a child from a previous relationship, according to a new report.

Analysis of the policies of England's 135 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) reveals that 88 (65 per cent) deem a couple as ineligible for IVF if one person already has a child.

The policy, discovered through freedom of information requests by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), is in contrast to National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidelines.

Nices guidance on fertility care for women aged 40 to 42, states: The existence of living children should not be a factor that precludes the provision of fertility treatment.

Marta Jansa Perez, director of embryology at Bpas, said it was an arbitrary rule that is being used by CCGs to ration services.

The consequence is that people desperate to become parents will be denied that opportunity because their partner already has a child, and one can only imagine the huge strain it could place on a relationship, said Ms Jansa Perez.

No other medical treatment would be withheld on the basis of non-clinical factors in this way.

Della Waterfield was denied IVF because her partner, Dean Parker, had a daughter from a previous relationship.

This absolutely broke my heart. I already felt inadequate as a woman not being able to get pregnant and to have this thrown at us turned our world upside down, she said.

We were already aware of the postcode lottery surrounding IVF treatment down to the number of cycles offered in different areas, but we never once thought that Dean having a child would affect us getting at least one funded round.

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Couples being denied IVF treatment if one of them has a child from a previous relationship - Telegraph.co.uk

Embryology

Dealing with a pandemic and helping UK’s first transgender parents: Shrewsbury fertility clinic boss looks back on whirlwind year – shropshirestar.com

The psychotherapist, who is chief executive of the National Fertility Society, opened the NFS Hub in Shrewsbury as a not for profit agency aiming to offer women and same-sex couples the chance to seek affordable treatment so they can start families of their own.

But during the Covid-19 outbreak, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which regulates Britains fertility industry ordered private and NHS clinics to stop treating patients who are in the middle of an IVF cycle by mid April.

All new treatments were also banned and more than 30 patients were put on hold at the Shrewsbury clinic, which offers treatments such as blood tests and scans.

Sandra, who also lives in Shrewsbury, said: "We were only able to do emergency cases but we did offer free counselling sessions by telephone and Skype.

"We are now back open. It was quite a few weeks ago and there are new safety measures.

"We've put up signage, do temperature checks, we've got hand sanitiser and staff are in PPE."

Although she had hoped to gain a licence for it to become an Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) fertility clinic that involves directly inserting sperm into a woman's womb those plans will have to be reassessed again next year because of the pandemic.

However, one way the clinic has helped to bring new life into the world is through its surrogacy service, which also launched last year and provides a platform for surrogates and intended parents to meet and match.

Hannah and Jake Graf were lucky enough to be introduced to their surrogate by Sandra who helped them throughout their journey to becoming Britain's first parents who are both transgender.

They have attracted national media attention and starred in a TV documentary after welcoming their first child, a baby girl named Millie, in April during the height of the pandemic.

"I saw Jake and Hannah on Lorraine and I contacted them through Facebook asking if I could help," Sandra said.

"We have a few surrogates, they have to fill out an application form and we do background checks.

"Laura Warke, a lovely lady in northern Ireland, had been with us for a few weeks and was a first time surrogate.

"I introduced them and we all met up in London. Afterwards, I was in regular contact all the way through their journey."

The couple, from London, used an unknown sperm donor who matched Hannah's description and Jake's eggs which had been frozen several years ago.

"They were very lucky in finding a surrogate as quickly as they did," said Sandra, who co-founded the NFS which has been running since 2017.

"For it to work first time, everything fell into place.

"They were so nervous. At the start I was speaking to them every few days.

"I supported Laura too, making sure she was okay with travelling and everything else.

"Laura had the baby in northern Ireland and Jake and Hannah went over to be there.

"It's enabled them to create the family they wanted. To be on this journey with them has been amazing.

"They knew becoming parents was going to be difficult. They'd also had quite a lot of negativity, messages saying they shouldn't be parents.

"For me different families come in different forms. The priority is the child."

The couple have since both thanked Sandra and the team at the National Fertility Society.

Hannah said: "Jake and I were super lucky to have our amazing surrogate Laura carry Millie for us, but that wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for the National Fertility Society who brought us together and guided us through our journey."

In a message of thanks, Laura also said the team had been at the end of the phone anytime she needed them, which "provided reassurance during a daunting time".

Sandra, who opened the NFS Hub in Yeomanry Road, Battlefield, with co-founder Joanne Carwardine, says going through an agency can ensure women and couples are not taken advantage of by potential surrogates who may try to charge large amounts of money in return for carrying a baby.

She added: "To come through an agency like us, everyone knows where they stand.

"There are people who want a lot of money for being a surrogate and you don't know who they are.

"We've had two babies born so far since setting up the surrogacy branch, with another due soon and one due next year."

For more information visit http://www.nationalfertilitysociety.co.uk

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Dealing with a pandemic and helping UK's first transgender parents: Shrewsbury fertility clinic boss looks back on whirlwind year - shropshirestar.com

Embryology

Off The Beaten Path: Lickity Split – Journal & Topics Newspapers Online

Stick it out and say, Ahhhhhh!

If the face of Helen of Troy was responsible for launching a thousand ships according to playwright Christopher Marlowe, and the eyes were the mirror of the soul to novelist Paulo Coelho De Souza, and the ears were accredited as the last feature to age by visionary Malcolm de Channel, and loose lips could sink ships, and the nose knows well then, what about the tongue, that very curious pinkish impish body part inside our skulls?

Perhaps not as physically attractive as other features, the tongue is certainly an important part of the human anatomy. Dr. Sam Webster, senior lecturer in anatomy and embryology, Swansea University Medical School in the United Kingdom, explains in his Muscles of the Tongue Anatomy presentation that the tongue is comprised of eight muscles.

The eight muscles are categorized into two groups, intrinsic and extrinsic. The four intrinsic muscles, the superior longitudinal muscle, the inferior longitudinal muscle, the vertical muscle, and the transverse muscle, alter the shape of the tongue, running along the length not attached to bone. The four extrinsic muscles, the genioglossus, hyoglossus, styloglossus, and palatoglossus, change the position of the tongue and are anchored to bone.

The tongue performs continuously like the heart. Even when sleeping, the tongue pushes saliva down the throat. We know that the tongue plays an important role in tasting and breaking down food, swallowing and speech. Thanks to the tongue containing inguinal tonsils, germs are filtered out of the body. The medical community describes the tongue as a mass of interlacing skeletal muscle connective tissue with some mucous and serous glands, and pockets of adipose tissue, covered in oral mucosa. Like a fingerprint and snowflakes, each individuals tongue print is unique.

Writer Josh Dulaney in his article Why your tongue isnt as necessary as you might have thought explains that Cal State University has been involved in research concerning humans born with a very rare condition called isolated congenital aglossia, meaning without a tongue. Cal States Betty McMicken, associate professor in the department of Speech-Language Pathology, and Long Wang, assistant professor in the department of Family and Consumer Sciences, worked with Kelly Rogers, a Saddleback College student who was born without a tongue but is still able to speak and detect basic tastes. Rogers muscles on the floor of her mouth have compensated for her loss of a tongue without medical intervention. Wang refers to it as the natural condition, the natural progression. Such discoveries give hope to those who have no tongues or who have had partial removals.

The adult mans average tongue length is 3.3 inches and the average womens length is 3.1 inches. The Guinness World Records reports the title of the Worlds Longest Tongue belonging to Nick Stoeberl, measuring in at 3.97 inches. Some competition has curled up with a young woman, Adrianne Lewis, claiming a 4-incher that can reach her eye!

While were talking tongue, there is no denying the popularity of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones very famous and familiar Tongue and Lip Design logo, which came to be referred to as the Stones Tongue, created by British art designer John Pasche. The notorious image depicts cartoon-like parted lips, white top teeth, and a tongue protruding in a downward position. Studying at the Royal College of Art, Pasche started working with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones while he was still a student in 1969. Rolling Stone reports Pasche explaining, The design concept for the Tongue was to represent the bands anti-authoritarian attitude, Micks mouth and the obvious sexual connotations. (The coronavirus has put a damper on some of the 50-year anniversary events acknowledging the famous logo.)

According to Best Classic Bands website (bestclassicbands.com): Pasche who had previously designed posters for several British films and Jagger met, and the artist was shown a piece of artwork depicting the Indian goddess Kali, whose tongue was sticking out in the painting. Pasche went to work and came up with the tongue and lips design, now so ubiquitous (the bright red was added later by an Atlantic Records executive).

Revolutionary for its time, the Stones tongue image worked well with the rock group with its lead singer gyrating on the stage, singing nasty lyrics about unmentionables, and seemingly implying some form of oral sex. Simple and kind of crude, the design has lived on through the years. Because the logo debuted in the Stones Sticky Fingers album package, many people incorrectly believed that cover designer Andy Warhol came up with it. (Warhols cover design featured a picture of the bulging crotch of Joe Dallesandro, an artist in tight jeans with a prominent zipper!) Craig Braun, designer, actor, and all-around Chicago born entrepreneur is often considered as a co-designer of the tongue image as he played a major role in the Sticky Fingers packaging and design.

Branded forever, the Stones tongue design was voted in August 2008 as the greatest band logo of all time in a poll conducted by Gigwise, a British online music news site that features music news, photos, album reviews, music festivals, and concert tickets. The logo which Pasche said took him a week to finish earned him a total of approximately 250 pounds of sterling (today about $312).

And the beat goes on with the popular American band Maroon 5 immortalizing the Stones Tongue in their 2010 hit song Moves Like Jagger:

Take me by the tongue and Ill know you/Kiss me till youre drunk and Ill show you/Got them moves like Jagger/I got the moves like Jagger, I got the mooooooooves like Jagger

Until we meet again, as James of Scotland would say, Keep well thy tongue.

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Off The Beaten Path: Lickity Split - Journal & Topics Newspapers Online

Embryology

Early fertility preservation in patients with endometriosis helps increase their chances of pregnancy – PRNewswire

VALENCIA, Spain, July 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Endometriosis is a disease that can seriously compromise ovarian function and can therefore pose a threat to the fertility of women who suffer from it. In fact, approximately 50% of patients with endometriosis will experience infertility; therefore, preserving fertility in this population should definitely be considered.

"Last April we presented a study showing the suitability oocyte vitrification in patients with endometriosis to preserve their fertility. In cases where ovarian surgery was required, the highest success rates were observed when the oocytes were vitrified prior to surgery, especially in patients under 35 years of age. As several scientific publications show, this is due to the fact that, even in very expert hands, cystectomy can cause a decrease of up to 40% in serum AMH levels, reflecting a significant impairment of the ovarian reserve as a result of the endometriosis removal surgery, or because in addition to removing the cyst, healthy tissue may also be removed inadvertently. However, it is not known whether the survival of the oocytes and the clinical outcomes would be negatively affected in patients with endometriosis who preserved their fertility compared to women without endometriosis who vitrified their oocytes for social reasons?" asked Dr Ana Cobo, Director of IVI Valencia's Cryobiology Unit.

This was the starting point for the study entitled Oocyte survival and clinical outcome is impaired in young endometriosis patients after fertility preservation (FP), led by Dr. Cobo, and which is presented at the 36th edition of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) Congress.

"The results of this study showed similar success rates in patients over 35 years of age, but in the under 35 group we observed that all parameters analyzed worse off in women with endometriosis. One might think that this finding is due to the fact that patients with endometriosis may have fewer eggs, and yes, this is one of the reasons, but not the only one. The truth is that the implantation rate, which does not depend on the number of oocytes, is about 15 points lower (39% in endometriosis vs. 55% in preservation for social reasons), which may be related to oocyte quality. The oocyte survival rate (85% in endometriosis vs. 91% in social preservation) reinforces this thesis," added Dr. Cobo.

In this sense, the results of survival, implantation and the lower reproductive potential observed in young patients with endometriosis confirm the negative impact of the disease on the ovarian reserve and most probably on the quality of the oocytes. To this we add the morphokinetic alterations observed by other authors in the embryos of patients with endometriosis, suggesting a poorer quality embryo.

This is a retrospective work that included 485 women with endometriosis who preserved their fertility, a sample from the study previously presented, compared to the 641 women who preserved for social reasons -without endometriosis-, a sample from the study that Dr. Cobo published in 2018. All of them used their vitrified oocytes subsequently to achieve pregnancy.

"Despite the high incidence of endometriosis and the growing number of women suffering from this disease who have vitrified oocytes to safeguard their fertility, very little is known about the effectiveness of the strategy in these cases. This study helps us clarify some of the main questions regarding the impact of endometriosis on reproductive outcomes. The study findings will also help us in advising these patients regarding their prospect of becoming mothers with their own eggs. They should preserve their fertility at an early age to increase their chances of pregnancy. Knowing that not only surgery can be harmful to the ovarian reserve, but also that endometriosis can alter the quality of the eggs, negatively affecting the rate of gestation, the sooner they are preserved, the greater the chance of success,"concluded Dr. Cobo.

About IVIRMA Global

IVI was founded in 1990, as the first medical institution in Spain fully dedicated to assisted reproduction. Since then it has helped with the birth of more than 200,000 babies thanks to the application of the latest technologies. In early 2017, IVI merged with RMANJ, becoming the largest assisted reproduction group in the world. It currently has more than 65 clinics in 9 countries and is the leading centre for reproductive medicine. http://www.ivi.es- http://www.rmanetwork.com.

CONTACT: Olesia Plokhii, (617) 997-8779, [emailprotected]

SOURCE IVIRMA Global

http://www.ivirma.com

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Early fertility preservation in patients with endometriosis helps increase their chances of pregnancy - PRNewswire

Embryology

I met my sperm donor birth father after years of wondering and was left crushingly disappointed – Telegraph.co.uk

What I remember most about meeting my father for this first time was his opening gambit: This pub is one of my favourites. He gestured to a picnic bench and asked me if I wanted a beer.

I was conceived by anonymous donor sperm and for years Id fantasised about meeting my biological father in my head hed loomed large, like an astronaut or Nobel laureate. The only things that my biological mother, Miranda, and her partner Dawn, knew about the donor was that he was green eyed and a medical student. Yet the man I met was an ordinary, unremarkable 50-year old who worked in human resources (turns out he actually had blue eyes and had studied economics), and the entire conversation as we fished around for topics we might have in common and found very few was crushingly disappointing.

He chatted awkwardly about draft beer and football, while I told him about being raised by lesbian mums and my career, and by the time I left the pub in north London, I felt shaken. Far from making me wish Id had a relationship with this man, the experience only made me miss Dawn, who Id always seen as a parent figure and who had died two years earlier. I remember calling Mum and crying down the phone. Hes a nice enough man, but hes not Dawn, I admitted. And yet I decided to give it another shot and meet up with him again.

Id known I didnt have a father for as long as I can remember and for years Id felt OK about it. Back in 1992 when I was born, being conceived by sperm donation was still an oddity, as was being raised by same-sex parents. Our house in the suburbs of Bristol was in a traditional neighbourhood with 2.4-children families and I remember making up ridiculous stories, as a very little kid, to account for being fatherless: my dad being a sailor, for example, who had died at sea. But my creative lesbian home was a haven and we did lots of dressing up and art.

When my mum split up with Dawn, when I was around six, and got together with Jayne, a woman who was visibly more masculine, and loud and proud at the school gates, I started being bullied. I think kids picked up on the fact that there was something different about me from their gossipy parents. A Christian woman who ran the after-school club was especially cruel. I ended up moving schools because I was being picked on.

There were plenty of upsides about having three mums. When I came out as liking boys at the age of 11, they were unsurprised and very supportive. And I knew how much they loved me. Yet there was always a niggling fear, when I was a child, about being incomplete: a fatherless boy without dad to take me to football or show me the ropes. This absent biological father became a mythical godlike figure until my teens when everything changed. It was the 2000s and being from an alternative family was suddenly cool. When another boy with two mums joined my secondary school, I remember being livid: having two mums was mysuperpower.

I always knew that at 18 Id be able to write to the HFEA (Human Fertility and Embryology Authority) for more information about the man who had donated the sperm, but I didnt hold out hope. Back then, sperm could be donated anonymously and only if the donor chose to waiver it could the child apply for the information once theyd turned 18 (although a change in the law means that children conceived after 2005 have an automatic right to know their donors identity). Id read up a little on the statistics and found that only one in ten sperm donors waive their right to anonymity. I wrote off on my 18th birthday and discovered that although there was no news about my donor, I had five donor siblings, two of whom were happy to be contacted. Oddly however, I couldnt get excited about this revelation, as the donor was the one who Id fixated on.

Even so, a few years later, when I was in my early 20s, I decided to track down my half-siblings, mainly as material for my work when I was writing a play about being a donor child. But as I set this up with the HFEA, they sent me the shock news that there had been a mixup and my father WAS able to be contacted after all. I felt a mixture of queasiness and excitement. It was a strange time to hear the news as Dawn had died of cancer a couple of years earlier. Id dearly loved her and considered her a parent and now, suddenly, here was another parent figure emerging.

Looking back, I should have let it all sink in before deciding whether to meet him but I went ahead immediately, after checking with Mum first. I was anxious: would it seem like a betrayal? She seemed excited but worried, though she put on a supportive front.

Desperate to meet him, I carefully hand-wrote a letter to him thanking him for his involvement in my life, enclosing a photo and my email and tentatively suggesting we meet for coffee. It took him less than a week to email back - and it was a pretty nail-biting time. I spent it obsessively Googling him, looking into his career history as well as finding a small pixelated headshot. Mum helped with the research and I loved that she was so much a part of it all

By the time we finally met, my nerves were still raw. Id told friends in London about it and my then-partner, and they were all supportive. The problem was that they couldnt really understand how it felt to meet this man that was so instrumental in my being, but wasnt a dad. Mum advised me not to get my hopes up in advance of the meeting, adding be yourself Jordan, thats enough.

After the shock of discovering this man I had built up in my head was an ordinary bloke, it struck me that were were oddly similar in some ways, particularly our mannerisms like the way he moved his hands and gazed off into the near distance and his prominent nose that was far more like mine than my Mums dainty button one.

I asked what compelled him to become a donor - he had donated five times - and when he admitted that it was for the money as hed been a student at the time and that hed only come forward because of his Catholic beliefs, it hurt. Happily he was very unjudgmental about my lesbian mums. It would have been tough if there had been any note of homophobia, or disapproval.

We groped around for other things we might have in common: politics, work, social attitudes, and found very little. He was into money and cars while I had stayed true to my chickpea-eating hippy roots instilled in me by my Mums.

We left it hanging but I could sense he wanted to meet me again. So we kept in touch and a few months later he suggested we meet again. By this point the swell of disappointment had subsided and I thought: why not?

It made me even more grateful to my mum and Dawn for the way they raised me and how loving my upbringing had been. On some level, I thought that meeting him would heal the emotions around Dawns death, but instead it had starkly reminded me of what Id lost. I became depressed and only got through it with the help of my mum and my two half sisters, conceived from the same donor. Id met up with them in person shortly before I met the donor - theyd also met him in person - they were both thoughtful women, born within a week of me [same year] and we shared personality traits and understood each other like no one else could: we had been through the same emotional ups and downs, high expectations and crashing disappointments of meeting our sperm donor and they were extremely supportive.

Looking back at it all, I feel conflicted. Being a sperm donor child is quite new and society projects all sorts of baggage onto us of being somehow lacking, and that can be tough. What does it mean if we dont feel fatherless? And if we do, is that in some way a rejection of the parents who raised us?

Ive seen my donor a few times since that first meeting and were building a relationship, of sorts, at a distance. Hes part of the puzzle that made me but hell never be my dad, and thats OK. I had all the parenting a boy could need. Meeting the donor has affected my relationship with mum in a lovely way: we were close before but now we share everything. Sometimes what were searching for is in front of us all along.

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I met my sperm donor birth father after years of wondering and was left crushingly disappointed - Telegraph.co.uk

Embryology

Infertile couples overestimate their chance of IVF success – BioNews

7 July 2020

Couples undergoing fertility treatment markedly overestimate their chance of IVF success, men to a greater extentthan women, according to new research.

The research presented at the virtual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology 2020 came from a small, single-centre study at Leuven University fertility clinic in Belgium.

'Clinics do share average success rates on their websites, but these are often only relevant to a reference population of younger patients. And many patients do not think that average success rates apply to them. They expect greater success, thinking of their healthy lifestyle or their experienced doctors,' said study author embryologist Johanna Devroe.

Sixty-nine couples who were about to start at second or subsequent IVF cycles separately completed a questionnaire assessing their dispositional outlook and estimated their chances of IVF success. The data was then compared with the couples' personalised calculated chance of IVF live birth.

The mean calculation of live birth rate for participants in the study was 32 percent, however, the vast majority of both women and men greatly overestimated their chances of success. Women overestimated by a factor of 1.8, while men overestimated their chance of success by a factor of 2.3 with over halfof the men expecting their birth rate to be more than double their calculated prognosis.

'Partners didn't differ in their dispositional outlook so we cannot fully explain the higher expected live birth rate in men by a difference in optimism,' said Devroe. 'We are now investigating this, to see if disclosing an individual's predicted success rate rather than a clinic's average success rate helps to set realistic expectations.'

Sarah Norcross, director of fertility and genetics charity, the Progress Educational Trust, said: 'This interesting, though not surprising, single-centre study, shows just how much both men and women hoping to become parents overestimate their chances of success following fertility treatment. It sends an important message to fertility clinics about the need to manage patients' expectations and support them before, during and after fertility treatment. The dramatic mismatch shown by this study where the vast majority of both men and women estimated their chance of success to be double what it actually was shows just how shocking it can be for couples when IVF does not work which is, sadly, what happens two-thirds of the time.'

Dr Raj Mathur, consultant gynaecologist and fertility lead at St Mary's hospital, Manchester, told BioNews: 'The findings will resonate with members of the British Fertility Society, who aim to counsel patients properly about their individual chances, while at the same time recognising the innate human bias towards positivity and hope. We support clinics and the UK fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in displaying success rates in a uniform way that can be understood by patients, and we feel that the relationship between patients and their clinicians is of the utmost importance in making decisions about whether to start or continue complex fertility treatment.'

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Infertile couples overestimate their chance of IVF success - BioNews

Embryology

New practical recommendations for the use of time-lapse technology in ART – ESHRE

New recommendations from ESHRE concentrate on the practicalities of introducing a time-lapse system into IVF labs, not on its use solely to improve delivery rates.

Despite such hopes and its widespread uptake, a lack of good practice guidelines for TLT in IVF has persisted. Now, the wait is over. Debbie Montjean, a member of the ESHREs SIG Embryology and one of 11 international contributors, presented details of the long awaited recommendations for TLT at this years virtual annual meeting. The collaborative effort has now produced a set of good-practice recommendations for the introduction and application of TLT, a comprehensive literature review and detailed time points for annotating development, whilst finely balancing both the pros and cons of this technology.(1)

The published recommendations, as Montjean emphasised, are not set out as a blueprint for improving embryo selection or delivery rates, but provide extensive support to IVF laboratories embarking on investment in TLT and standardisation and structure to those with the systems already in place. In addition, the publication emphasises the need for consistent nomenclature and annotations of morphokinetics, guidelines which were previously published but further summarised within this publication.(2)

For newcomers to the technology the recommendations are divided into a user-friendly 11-step guide to the best approach to introduction and application. The publication comprehensively reviews all versions of TLT currently available, comparing an extensive range of user requirement specifications in hardware, software and the on-going costs of technical support and maintenance.

Acknowledging the initial excitement when TLT was first introduced, with obvious implications for the efficiency of ART treatment, the authors propose that these expectations are yet to be met; indeed, the integration of TLT within the ART laboratory has not yet increased IVF success rates as once hoped. Yet, added Montjean, clinical outcomes arent the only advantage to justify use. Significant importance to other laboratory activities should not be ignored, she said. Undisturbed and stable culture conditions combined with improvements in laboratory workflow, flexibility and efficiency are substantial benefits. Moreover, TLT has undoubtedly revealed further biological markers and development anomalies which are otherwise undetected in traditional culture and static embryo assessments. Thus, the recommendations summarise 20 atypical features in human embryo cleavage development, 13 of which are exclusively observed using TLT and the remaining seven better observed when assisted by TLT. Such observations of subtle embryo anomalies and early mitosis can assist in blastocyst prediction with higher sensitivity and accuracy. Montjean ended her online presentation noting that time-lapse will at least help you to prioritise embryos and ultimately shorten your time to pregnancy.

Until now the absence of good practice guidelines for TLT and a lack of standardisation might be a reason for the inconsistent results among global users of the technology. But the authors here recognise that TLT is here to stay in the IVF lab; perhaps a standardisation of practice may unify the data and point towards an improvement in IVF success rates.

1. ESHRE Working group on Time-Lapse technology. Good practice recommendations for the use of time-Lapse technology. Hum Reprod Open 2020; doi: 10.1093/hropen/hoaa008.2. Ciray HN, Campbell A, Agerholm AE, et al. Proposed guidelines on the nomenclature and annotation of dynamic human embryo monitoring by a time lapse user group. Human Reprod 2014; 29: 2650-2660.

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New practical recommendations for the use of time-lapse technology in ART - ESHRE

Embryology

"The global gold standard": Aussie startup Presagen launches its AI fertility app in the UK and Europe – SmartCompany.com.au

Co-founders Dr Jonathan Hall, Dr Michelle Perugini and Dr Don Perugini. Source: Matt Loxton.

An Australian company that uses artificial intelligence to increase the chance of pregnancy through IVF has launched its software application in the UK and Europe.

Life Whisperer, the fertility arm of AI healthcare company Presagen, commercialised its flagship product in Australia in late January and released it through a distributor into India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh last month.

Approvals are also being sought to sell the South Australian-developed software tool in Japan, Southeast Asia and the US, where it has conducted a number of clinical trials.

Last weeks launch into the UK and Europe is a major step in the three-and-a-half-year journey for the product, which was forced into a COVID-19 hiatus from March to May when many of the worlds fertility clinics closed their doors.

Adelaide-based Presagen currently has 15 staff and small offices in San Francisco and London to drive the global expansion.

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Presagen co-founder and chief executive Dr Michelle Perugini said the company had strong connections in the UK and Europe and a number of clinics were already trialling the product in the region.

She said getting clinics on board as commercial customers was the next stage.

Regulatory approval in the UK and Europe represents a significant opportunity for Life Whisperer to expand its global presence, and we are very much looking forward to working with clinics and patients across the region, supported from our London offices, she said.

Its a secure web-based application that is completely scalable so we can set up new clinics within minutes anywhere in the world.

The Embryo Viability Application for IVF clinics uses artificial intelligence to analyse images of embryos to assist clinicians to identify which embryo will likely lead to a pregnancy.

By selecting the best embryo, Life Whisperer aims to shorten the time to pregnancy and improve outcomes for couples undergoing IVF treatment.

An international study recently published in the journal Human Reproduction involved blind evaluation of 1600 IVF embryos.

Life Whisperer was shown to perform 25% better than traditional manual methods of embryo assessment by highly experienced embryologists.

The technology was showcased on Tuesday night last week (Australian time) at the 36th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, which is being held online this year.

Internationally renowned fertility expert Matthew (Tex) VerMilyea from Ovation Fertility (US) will present Life Whisperers latest advances in AI for IVF at the event where Presagen will also have a virtual exhibition booth.

Dr Perugini said Presagen was planning a significant capital raise this year to drive growth.

She said the company was looking forward to working with IVF clinics across the globe to offer Life Whisperer to patients at a low cost, meaning more couples could gain more certainty in embryo selection and achieve success sooner, with fewer IVF cycles.

Life Whisperer is poised to become the global gold standard embryo pre-screening tool in IVF, supporting the clinical decision about which embryo is most viable.

This article was first published by The Lead.

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"The global gold standard": Aussie startup Presagen launches its AI fertility app in the UK and Europe - SmartCompany.com.au

Embryology

Risk of IVF babies being born with cerebral palsy halves due to decline in twins, study reveals – The Telegraph

The risk of IVF babies being born with cerebral palsy has fallen by 50 per cent due to the decline in twins, a study has found.

Fewer twins are being conceived using the method because doctors are reducing the practice of implanting multiple embryos into the woman's womb, according to scientists at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark.

Women who have just one embryo transferred during IVF treatment are five times more likely to give birth to a healthy baby as there is less risk the child will be born low-weight or delivered prematurely, researchers from the University of Aberdeen previously found.

IVF twin rates have declined from almost 25 per cent in the 1990s to less than 5 per cent today.

This latest study now indicates that the number of babies being born with cerebral palsy, a condition which affects movement and coordination, has more than halved in the past 20 years and the risk is now equal to those conceived naturally.

Using data from Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the researchers examined some 112,000 IVF children born over 24 years.

They found that the prevalence of cerebral palsy among single babies born from IVF decreased from 8.5 per 1,000 to the normal population rate of 2.8. For twins, the rate remained stable at 10.9.

Dr Anne Lrke Spangmose presented the findings at the online Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

"The inclusion of complete IVF and naturally conceived birth cohorts makes our data robust and has allowed assessment of the true risk of cerebral palsy in IVF and its decline over time," she said.

"Multiple embryo transfer is still standard care in many countries. Our findings emphasise that single embryo transfer and singleton births should be encouraged worldwide."

Large registry studies have shown that the risk of cerebral palsy has virtually disappeared in IVF children born in the Nordic countries after a policy of single embryo transfer was introduced in the early 2000s.

The NHS recommends that women aged 39 and under should have a single embryo transfer where possible, while women aged 40 and above can have a double embryo transfer.

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Risk of IVF babies being born with cerebral palsy halves due to decline in twins, study reveals - The Telegraph

Embryology

I found sperm donor on Facebook as I was desperate for a baby, we first met when he came round to give me the – The Sun

A FIRST-TIME mum was so desperate to have a child with her female partner that she used aspermdonor - that she found on FACEBOOK.

Shannon, 20, turned to the social networking site in the hope of finding an affordable way to fall pregnant with her partner, Katie, 25.

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The pair began to research their options, but didn't like the idea of picking an anonymous donor from a list and couldn't afford the 3k fertility clinic price tag.

Instead, they joined a Facebook group with other hopeful parents and willing donors.

They went on to select a donor from Facebook in April 2019, after being together for seven months, and within two months Shannon fell pregnant via artificial insemination (AI) - using a syringe bought from Amazon to conceive.

Artificial insemination is the process in which a donor'sspermis inserted into the female's body not via sex - but commonly with pipettes and even turkey basters.

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She gave birth to Ocean Mabel Rose onFebruary 13 this year, weighing a healthy 6lbs 2oz - their first baby together.

Ocean completes their new family of four - as Katie has another child also via a donor, two-year-old Jaycee-Rayne.

Stay-at-home mum Shannon said: "I'm adopted myself, and have never been surrounded by an actual biological family.

"Once Katie and I decided we wanted a baby together, I simply searched online 'Spermdonors UK'.

"I wasnt expecting much, perhaps to see a load of IVF clinics with all these huge prices that I knew I would never be able to afford.

I got lots of strange friend requests from men saying they would be my donor, but 8/10 looked like fake accounts.

"Instead, it linked me to a Facebook group where donors and recipients could find each other and get to know one another - establishing a proper relationship, not all anonymous like the clinics do things.

"I was shocked at first as I thought it was odd. But the more I looked into it, the more I warmed up to the idea.

"Everyone was friendly and we had so many donors messaging us and offering their services. If I was to have another child, this is the only way I'd do it."

New mum Shannon had always dreamed of having her own baby, but knew the costs atspermdonor clinics were out of her budget.

She said: "Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a mum.

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"Having a female partner automatically made that process more difficult, but it was just another hurdle to overcome.

"I'd considered aspermdonor in December 2018 when I was single, but then Katie came into my life and things changed."

Meeting on dating app Plenty of Fish, Shannon and full-time-mum Katie instantly clicked and discussed having their own children. Katie was already a mother to then 10-month-old Jaycee-Rayne.

Shannon said: "I expressed to Katie that I wanted to have a child but she wasnt ready at that time, considering how young her daughter was.

"By January 2019 I brought the subject back up and it nearly broke our relationship as she still wasn't ready.

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"Having a baby was my number one dream, but she had already had her daughter and just wasnt ready to take on another."

Two months later, the couple had another chat, and after some tears and a deep discussion, they decided that they were ready to have a baby of their own.

Unsure where to commence their search for aspermdonor, the pair searched online on a whim for options, and Facebook was the first result that popped up.

The link was to a private Facebook group of hopeful parents andspermdonors offering their services.

Shannon said: "There were hundreds of groups, but I wanted to make sure I wasnt rushing into joining any old one.

The donor really understood the process, and was patient with us without being overbearing or creepy.

"I worried about the motives of some of these donors, but once we saw their STD checks and genetic test results, my mind was put at ease.

"Looks weren't too important to us either, as the DNA pool would be 50/50 anyway. We were more concerned about having a healthy, happy baby over anything cosmetic.

"At first I got lots of strange friend requests from men saying they would be my donor, but 8/10 looked like fake accounts.

"But then I saw more and more posts from women who had been successful with their donors, and it gave me the hope that the right donor would eventually come to me."

In April 2019 Shannon and Katie received the message they had been waiting for - a donor who had previously fathered children through the page.

He provided them with up-to-date health check certificates, photos of himself, his job description and photos of his previous donor children -of which there were 11.

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Excited Katie said: "I practically jumped with excitement and thought to myself that he was perfect, and the one for us.

"Once we started talking, Shannon let him know the dates on which she would be ovulating, so he could come to our flat in that time-frame and provide hissperm.

"We bought a kit on Amazon which came with an ovulation test, a sterile cup for the donor to leave his sample in, and a syringe so I could insert Shannon with thespermonce the donor had completed his sample."

The donor then came to the pair's flat two times in May and June, taking his sample cup into the bathroom to fill withspermand return it to the couple.

Then, Katie would suck up thespermwith a syringe and insert it into Shannon, who lay down for at least half an hour to ensure thespermwas in her body.

Shannon said: "It was all a bit of a rush, as to maximise the chance of falling pregnant thespermshouldn't be outside of the body for too long. After about 20 minutes thespermcan die, so we couldn't afford to wait if we wanted it to be successful.

"The donor really understood the process, and was patient with us without being overbearing or creepy.

"He said he did it to help women or couples have children he just seemed like a nice man, and always did the job!"

The couple paid the donor's transport costs, and although DIY insemination is not officially unlawful, it is illegal to distributespermintended for human application without a licence issued by theHuman Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Donors on Facebook dont have the same rights as theofficial route theyre liable to pay child support if a contract isnt signed and could still see the child if thats what both parties want.

After two attempts, Shannon successfully became pregnant in June 2019."I had such severe morning sickness until week 25 of the pregnancy, but I was elated more than anything to have a safe and healthy baby," she said.

"Our little girl was born naturally at 38 weeks and it was the best day of my life."

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Shannon was in labour for 16 hours, and with Katie by her side she gave birth on 13th February 2020 to Ocean Mabel Rose.

Shannon said: As soon as I held my baby I knew Id made the right decision. Katie and I were both in tears, and I felt nothing but pure joy. She looked perfect."

There is no fathers name on Ocean's birth certificate and a man who providesspermas a donor gives up his legal rights over the biological child.

The donor will only meet the baby at the request of Shannon and Katie, but he has no legal grounds upon which to request visitation or custody.

Shannon said: "I feel like a new woman.

"We're all doing really well, and Ocean is the most content baby ever.

"The process was so easy and we were so lucky to fall pregnant so quickly.

"We now have the perfect family of four. Facebook gave me a baby, something I never thought I'd say."

How does sperm donation in the UK work?

Sperm donation can help couples struggling to have kids of their own or single women who want to start a family.

If you donate your sperm through a fertility clinic or a sperm bank, you wont have any responsibilities or rights towards a child conceived using your semen.

However, as of April 2005, children conceived through sperm donation do have the right to ask for certain information about their donor once they reach the age of 16.

When they turn 18 they can also request to know the name and last known address of their donor.

The main reason men choose to donate their sperm is to help couples who cant conceive naturally, or if they have a strong desire to pass on their genes to another generation.

In the UK, donation in exchange for payment is prohibited by law.

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Meanwhile, super sperm donorMitch KennedybaffledThis Morning viewerswith his plan to prevent incestuous relationships among his expanding brood.

And 66 kids and counting... 'white van man sperm donor' Clive tells more about his remarkable storyhere.

Plus meet Charlotte who had a kid with Clive - one of the UK's most prolific sperm donors.

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I found sperm donor on Facebook as I was desperate for a baby, we first met when he came round to give me the - The Sun