Word: in-vitro
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...more than a decade, Steptoe and Edwards performed dozens of in-vitro experiments--paid for in part by Steptoe's earnings from legal abortions--but none of the 30 or so pregnancies lasted more than 10 weeks. Finally, the pair decided that instead of waiting four or more days while the fertilized egg underwent about 100 divisions, they would implant it after just 2 1/2 days, at the eight-cell stage. The daring strategy worked--and just short of nine months later, while all the world seemed to be watching, Steptoe delivered Baby Brown by caesarean section...
...American Jews of East European descent, a high-risk group. As a result of early identification, a few congenital conditions, such as spina bifida, a disabling hole in the spinal cord, are being treated in the womb by experimental surgery at about seven months. Sex-selection techniques based on in-vitro fertilization can reduce the risk of giving birth to a baby with sex-linked disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy and hemophilia, which affect only males...
...couples know they carry genes for life-threatening illnesses that they don't want to pass on to the next generation, they can opt for a remarkable procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). It starts with standard in-vitro fertilization, in which sperm from the father are mixed with eggs collected from the mother in a Petri dish. Then comes the genetic magic...
...beings in a legal sense. The Johns Hopkins researchers took theirs from fetuses that had been aborted early in pregnancy. The Wisconsin group used blastocysts, clusters of about 140 cells that develop within a week after fertilization. (They were donated by couples who had extra blastocysts left over from in-vitro fertilization.) The scientists, however, were hardly indifferent to ethical concerns. At Johns Hopkins, for example, it took nearly four years of testimony in front of scientific and ethical review panels before the work could even begin. Says team leader John Gearhart: "The potential for these cells weighed very heavily...
PREGNANT PAUSE Women undergoing in-vitro fertilization, listen up. Federal agencies are concerned about taking aspirin in combination with the blood thinner heparin to maintain a pregnancy. Worry: risk of hemorrhage...