Another example of 'patient mis-identification' with the patient in this case being either the wrong mother or the wrong embryo -- take your pick:
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090922/NEWS16/909220358
Note that in this case, the mother chose to continue the pregnancy even though the wrong embryo had been implanted. The article goes on to list a similar case where the mother chose to terminate the pregnancy.
Showing posts with label Assisted Pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assisted Pregnancy. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Cryopreservation World Record
We’ve previously mentioned the potential problem of asynchrony brought about by cryopreservation technology. That is, a man could have his sperm frozen and it could then be used at a much later date to fertilize an ovum. Today’s news brings this example:
“CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Fertility specialists of Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte (REACH) herald the successful birth of a baby girl March 4 who was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) at their laboratory with sperm frozen for 21 years, which they believe ties the world record for the longest-frozen sperm used to create a baby with IVF.”
The complete article is found at:
http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/04-09-2009/0005003850&EDATE=
“CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Fertility specialists of Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte (REACH) herald the successful birth of a baby girl March 4 who was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) at their laboratory with sperm frozen for 21 years, which they believe ties the world record for the longest-frozen sperm used to create a baby with IVF.”
The complete article is found at:
http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/04-09-2009/0005003850&EDATE=
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Post-Mortem Sperm Recovery
Lest we think that some of the more unusual methods of assisted reproduction never actually take place, here’s an example of post-mortem sperm recovery with the intent to use it to impregnate a surrogate mother:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/08/0408evans.html
In this case there would be no apparent non-paternal event, since the biological father would be known, but a family history research of the future might wonder at the birth of a child so long after their father’s death.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/08/0408evans.html
In this case there would be no apparent non-paternal event, since the biological father would be known, but a family history research of the future might wonder at the birth of a child so long after their father’s death.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A Downside to Artificial Insemination
A recent article in New Scientist illustrates a downside to assisted pregnancy – in this case the sperm used to artificially inseminate a woman passed on so-called fragile X syndrome to the resulting child. The story is at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227032.400-sperm-bank-sued-under-product-liability-law.html
One lesson from this is that when the family historian is looking for physical traits that might signal the source of a non-paternity event, they can be misled by recessive or ordinarily unexpressed genes that show up in the child but are not seen in the biological parent.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Cryopreservation
A 12-page insert in my morning paper offers articles on fertility and pregnancy mixed in with ads from fertility clinics and drug companies. We’ve talked before about various aspects of assisted pregnancy and its implications for non-paternity events. This morning’s insert brings up another aspect – the ability to preserve eggs, sperm and embryos for long periods of time, usually via cryopreservation or freezing.
Preservation itself, one might think, would have no implication for NPEs. However, it offers the opportunity to shift fertilization or pregnancy in time and to create asynchronies in what is usually a synchronous process.
Let’s consider sperm preservation first. Artificial insemination relies, generally, on the preservation of semen samples from donors that are then used to impregnate women. (There are exceptions – a case a few years ago involved a doctor in New Jersey who would ‘generate’ his own ejaculate on the spot and use it to fertilize his patients. He sired quite a few kids before the practice was discovered.) By preserving the semen, a woman may become pregnant with a man’s child after his death. Obviously, this isn’t limited to the artificial insemination case. Sperm is now preserved by in vitro clinics, by men who are about to undergo radiation treatments and by men who are about to go overseas to war in anticipation of injury or incapacity.
There are also new techniques for harvesting viable sperm from the recently deceased, or so the lead article in the insert informs me. The point here is that the recovery and preservation of semen offers the possibility of men siring children long after their own death, and perhaps with women they did not know. Newer technologies that preserve ova offer this same possibility in the case of women.
So how long do frozen sperm and ova remain viable? A Mayo clinic study found no difference in fertility between fresh or frozen sperm, but the freeze interval was not specified. There has been at least one case where sperm frozen for 19 years was used successfully to fertilize an ovum and resulted in a full-term pregnancy. Studies done with other species indicate that sperm frozen in liquid nitrogen (about -322° F) remain viable for remarkably long times – trends in viability decreases indicate that frozen sperm could still be viable after 10,000 years. Ova freezing is a newer technique and viability is not as high as for sperm, although that could improve as studies continue. At least so far, freezing embryos has been more successful than freezing ova.
We have the possibility with these new techniques for children to be born long after their biological parents have died. The imagination reels at the variety of NPEs made possible through intent or accident. What family historian is prepared to tease out actual inheritance when generations could pass between parents and the birth of their children?
Preservation itself, one might think, would have no implication for NPEs. However, it offers the opportunity to shift fertilization or pregnancy in time and to create asynchronies in what is usually a synchronous process.
Let’s consider sperm preservation first. Artificial insemination relies, generally, on the preservation of semen samples from donors that are then used to impregnate women. (There are exceptions – a case a few years ago involved a doctor in New Jersey who would ‘generate’ his own ejaculate on the spot and use it to fertilize his patients. He sired quite a few kids before the practice was discovered.) By preserving the semen, a woman may become pregnant with a man’s child after his death. Obviously, this isn’t limited to the artificial insemination case. Sperm is now preserved by in vitro clinics, by men who are about to undergo radiation treatments and by men who are about to go overseas to war in anticipation of injury or incapacity.
There are also new techniques for harvesting viable sperm from the recently deceased, or so the lead article in the insert informs me. The point here is that the recovery and preservation of semen offers the possibility of men siring children long after their own death, and perhaps with women they did not know. Newer technologies that preserve ova offer this same possibility in the case of women.
So how long do frozen sperm and ova remain viable? A Mayo clinic study found no difference in fertility between fresh or frozen sperm, but the freeze interval was not specified. There has been at least one case where sperm frozen for 19 years was used successfully to fertilize an ovum and resulted in a full-term pregnancy. Studies done with other species indicate that sperm frozen in liquid nitrogen (about -322° F) remain viable for remarkably long times – trends in viability decreases indicate that frozen sperm could still be viable after 10,000 years. Ova freezing is a newer technique and viability is not as high as for sperm, although that could improve as studies continue. At least so far, freezing embryos has been more successful than freezing ova.
We have the possibility with these new techniques for children to be born long after their biological parents have died. The imagination reels at the variety of NPEs made possible through intent or accident. What family historian is prepared to tease out actual inheritance when generations could pass between parents and the birth of their children?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Assisted Pregnancies
Before we move on to talk about ‘traditional’ non-paternity events I’d like to mention some of the ways that modern science appears to be complicating the family historian’s lot.
Let’s start with artificial insemination, one of the older methods of assisting women whose husbands are infertile to get pregnant. Sperm donors deposit semen that is stored until a recipient chooses the donor from a list and it is then injected in the woman’s uterus at her peak period of fertility. Until recently, sperm donors remained anonymous and many couples who used artificial insemination did not inform their children that their social father was not their biological father. This sets up the classic NPE situation.
In recent years, some states have set up voluntary sperm donor identification registries. Donors who are willing to be identified register and children they sired can find out who their biological father is. Some men whose description and profile proved popular have discovered that they have dozens of children and seem rather bemused at the concept.
In vitro fertilization is a technique usually employed to allow couples who for some reason cannot conceive naturally to generate a fertilized egg that is then implanted. Sometimes multiple embryos are implanted to insure that at least one will ‘take’. Normally, the husband sperm and the wife’s ova are used for in vitro fertilization, but this is not necessarily the case -- a sperm or egg donor could be used. The donor could be related (e.g., the husband’s brother or the wife’s sister) or unrelated. If the resulting child is not informed of the nature of their conception, the usual NPE situation is set up.
A case that illustrates the perils of in vitro fertilization occurred in the Netherlands. A Dutch couple used their own sperm and ova to produce embryos that were implanted and resulted in the birth of twin boys. One of the boys, however, was clearly not the husband’s – he was darker skinned and looked part Indian. In fact, he was. The fertilization lab had used the same pipette to transfer sperm to fertilize ova for two successive clients and sperm from the Indian man from the first couple had stayed in the pipette and fertilized one of the Dutch woman’s ova.
Another recent practice, that of surrogate motherhood, can also result in an NPE. Surrogates have the option in most states to renege on their contract and to keep the child they have carried. In some cases, this may be regardless of whether it was their ovum or that of the woman from the employing couple.
Ova donors set up a situation parallel to that of sperm donors. And embryo donation, encouraged in some states to preserve unused embryos from in vitro procedures, presents us with another case where a woman can get pregnant and carry to term a child that is completely unrelated to her or her husband.
Let’s start with artificial insemination, one of the older methods of assisting women whose husbands are infertile to get pregnant. Sperm donors deposit semen that is stored until a recipient chooses the donor from a list and it is then injected in the woman’s uterus at her peak period of fertility. Until recently, sperm donors remained anonymous and many couples who used artificial insemination did not inform their children that their social father was not their biological father. This sets up the classic NPE situation.
In recent years, some states have set up voluntary sperm donor identification registries. Donors who are willing to be identified register and children they sired can find out who their biological father is. Some men whose description and profile proved popular have discovered that they have dozens of children and seem rather bemused at the concept.
In vitro fertilization is a technique usually employed to allow couples who for some reason cannot conceive naturally to generate a fertilized egg that is then implanted. Sometimes multiple embryos are implanted to insure that at least one will ‘take’. Normally, the husband sperm and the wife’s ova are used for in vitro fertilization, but this is not necessarily the case -- a sperm or egg donor could be used. The donor could be related (e.g., the husband’s brother or the wife’s sister) or unrelated. If the resulting child is not informed of the nature of their conception, the usual NPE situation is set up.
A case that illustrates the perils of in vitro fertilization occurred in the Netherlands. A Dutch couple used their own sperm and ova to produce embryos that were implanted and resulted in the birth of twin boys. One of the boys, however, was clearly not the husband’s – he was darker skinned and looked part Indian. In fact, he was. The fertilization lab had used the same pipette to transfer sperm to fertilize ova for two successive clients and sperm from the Indian man from the first couple had stayed in the pipette and fertilized one of the Dutch woman’s ova.
Another recent practice, that of surrogate motherhood, can also result in an NPE. Surrogates have the option in most states to renege on their contract and to keep the child they have carried. In some cases, this may be regardless of whether it was their ovum or that of the woman from the employing couple.
Ova donors set up a situation parallel to that of sperm donors. And embryo donation, encouraged in some states to preserve unused embryos from in vitro procedures, presents us with another case where a woman can get pregnant and carry to term a child that is completely unrelated to her or her husband.
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