Conception News and Research

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EMD Serono's TocopheRx to focus on development of oral FSH agonists for infertility treatment

EMD Serono, Inc., a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced today the creation of TocopheRx, a Boston-based spin-off company resulting from the Entrepreneur Partnership Program launched by Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in April 2012.

3 Dec 2013

Preterm infants at high risk for significant long-term problems

Premature birth appears to trigger developmental processes in the white matter of the brain that could put children at higher risk of problems later in life, according to a study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

27 Nov 2013

New targeted treatments for autism may be possible

Finding major new clues to the origins of autism, a Yale-led team of researchers has pinpointed which cell types and regions of the developing human brain are affected by gene mutations linked to autism. They report their findings in the Nov. 21 issue of the journal Cell.

22 Nov 2013

Conceive Plus Fertility Personal Lubricant receives FDA approval

The Pew Research Center reports that in the year 2011, the birth rate in the United States slid by 8%. That kind of statistic would indicate getting pregnant isn't as easy as it used to be. However, pharmaceutical manufacturer SASMAR aims to be at the forefront of helping couples to start families. The FDA has officially approved their OTC sperm friendly fertility personal lubricant, Conceive Plus for sale in the US market.

15 Nov 2013

Study: Clinicians' decision making could be affected by method of conception

Parents who conceive through assisted reproductive technologies are likely to receive different medical advice in relation to prenatal testing than those who conceive naturally, academics have suggested.

5 Nov 2013

Middle Peak Medical raises additional $3M in Series A financing

Middle Peak Medical, a development-stage medical device company that will commercialize a novel technology for treating mitral valve disease, has raised an additional $3M in a second closing of its over-subscribed Series A financing, which now totals approximately $11M.

28 Oct 2013

World Bank must define life expectancy, say international public health experts

The World Bank must define life expectancy, its key poverty indicator, as starting at the time of conception and not at the time of birth if millions of lives are to be saved from injury or death. International public health experts, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, said that definitional oversight, in which the life of the child is inadvertently cut into two, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the womb, covers up risks to the fetus and is particularly unfair to children born in areas increasingly at risk to disasters and already disadvantaged by poverty, hunger and social deprivation.

25 Oct 2013

Fetal exposure to mycophenolic acid products may increase risk of birth defects

Research suggests that fetal exposure to mycophenolic acid products (MPA)—which are drugs taken by transplant recipients to prevent rejection—may increase the risk of birth defects and spontaneous abortions. Results of this study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.

24 Oct 2013

Department of Defense backs tissue-engineering research for soldiers, civilians

A $75 million Department of Defense grant to improve technologies to treat soldiers injured on the battlefield and advance care for the public will involve bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

30 Sep 2013

Clean water and growth of children: an interview with Dr Alan Dangour

Growth in children is known to be directly affected by two critical factors: food intake and incidence of disease. It is known that access to good quality water, improved sanitation and enhanced hygiene (WASH) practices lead to decreased levels of infectious disease in children. We were interested to know whether this decline in disease would lead to improvements in child growth.

23 Sep 2013

Longer looks: Psychology of gun control; saying goodbye; questioning ADHD

Every week reporter Ankita Rao selects interesting reading from around the Web.

21 Sep 2013

Pregnant women with BMI too high or low are more likely to have maternal complications

Pregnant women with a body mass index (BMI) that is too high or too low are more likely to have maternal complications, require additional hospital care and incur higher medical costs, according to a new study published today (18 September) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

18 Sep 2013

Medicaid pays for nearly 50% of 3.8 million births in US

Medicaid paid for nearly half of the 3.8 million births in the United States in 2010—an amount that has been rising over time, according to a report out today.

4 Sep 2013

Researchers study reproductive stage that remains most mysterious

Mississippi State University scientists are working to find out why some pregnancies are successful and others are not.

31 Aug 2013

Dieting before getting pregnant not enough to prevent diabetes risks

Bethesda, MD-While there is never a bad time to address one's own obesity, if you're hoping to lose weight before conception for the sake of your child, here's some bad news: Some of the epigenetic damage might have already been done, even if you lose the weight just before conception.

30 Aug 2013

IVF, cesarean section asthma link strengthened

Researchers from Greece have shown that pediatric asthma is associated with both conception by in vitro fertilization and birth by cesarean section.

29 Aug 2013

International conference to focus on concepts of 'imperfection' in children

The word 'imperfection' is contentious, whether applied in a contemporary or historical sense and especially when used in the context of children; it assumes normative standards of behaviour, physical appearance, mental capacity or way of living, at the same time as it means very different things in particular ethnic, geographical or historical contexts.

22 Aug 2013

New book on evolution and future of human reproduction

Human beings would probably be known as pilosals rather than mammals if Carl Linnaeus had not been a proponent of breast-feeding. For social and political reasons, the famed taxonomist labeled the class of animals to which humans belong with a reference to their practice of suckling their young rather than to their evolutionarily older characteristic of having hair.

21 Aug 2013

Study: Children born to obese mothers are more likely to die early as adults

Children born to obese mothers are more likely to die early as adults than those whose mothers were a normal weight, a study has found.

16 Aug 2013

Study suggests obesity does not affect women’s chances of conception with donor eggs

In women who use donor eggs to become pregnant through in vitro fertilization (IVF), those who are obese are just as likely to become pregnant as normal weight women, according to a new report.

1 Aug 2013