Word: womb
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Just about the time that eight babies began growing inside a California woman's womb, some nationwide policies about fertility treatment were being codified. In June, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) issued updated "Guidelines on Number of Embryos Transferred." Women under age 35 - the octuplets' mom is reportedly 33 - should attempt to transfer no more than two, and preferably only one, fertilized embryo at a time. Women over age 40 should attempt no more than five. (See pictures of multiple births...
...clearly, the chances of naturally conceiving eight children at once are well-nigh impossible. And the facts of Suleman's conception - she had six embryos implanted in her womb, two of which split into twins - are troubling. Medical guidelines limit the practice to one or two implanted embryos at most. A fertility expert quoted in the Los Angeles Times noted that octuplets are "unbelievably rare. When people use fertility drugs, 80% even then are single births. The vast majority of the others are twins." By that token, Suleman, who is entertaining offers of a reality show and has reportedly fired...
...What spooks many people is the question, Once you start checking eggs for viability, what else can you screen for? Whole cells can already be harvested from embryos, and free-floating embryonic cells can be extracted from the womb throughout a pregnancy. Both procedures would, in theory, allow embryos to be discarded or pregnancies to be terminated for a matter as trivial as height or eye color. But both also allow parents and doctors to decide against bringing to term a baby that would enter the world with a grave and degenerative disease. The ethical conundrum lies in drawing...
...researcher who describes autism as a condition of the "extreme male brain" says fetuses exposed in the womb to high levels of the male hormone testosterone are more likely than others to develop autistic traits as children...
...Baron-Cohen studied 235 pairs of mothers and children over eight years, periodically giving the children questionnaires designed to measure autistic traits. None of the children in the study received an autism diagnosis, but Baron-Cohen found that those who had been exposed to higher testosterone levels in the womb - measured via amniocentesis during pregnancy - had a greater chance of displaying autism-associated traits such as poor social skills, imagination and empathy and high aptitude in certain memory-retention exercises...