NEW SPERM AND EGG DONOR LAW TO BE PUT INTO EFFECT IN WASHINGTON STATE SOON

Many couples, infertile and otherwise, will turn to sperm or egg donors, to have the family they want, when their efforts to do so themselves, have failed them.

These donors remain anonymous and so does most of their information, including pertinent   genetic information, as recipient families are not legally entitled to such information.

Recently on ABC, a 15 year old young man (Tyler) and his mother was featured. Tyler was conceived using a sperm donor and when he made contact with his biological aunt recently, it was discovered that his sperm donor father had died at the age of 43 due to a genetic heart condition (genetic connective tissue disorder). After a quick trip to Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore for a baseline screening of his heart, Tyler discovered that he had the same life-threatening heart condition, too.  Luckily for Tyler, he is able to get treatment before it is too late. Tyler’s mom said that this gentleman should never have allowed to be a sperm donor. He has fathered twenty plus children via three sperm banks.

It is for reasons like this that a law will be passed in Washington State soon requiring that sperm and egg donors  provide fertility clinics with their identifying information and medical history. Under the new law, offspring age 18 and older can seek out their donors, as long as the donors haven't signed an affidavit of nondisclosure. The aim is to give people conceived via donated tissue a chance to solve a future medical emergency, just as people who have been adopted currently can.

Read more:-

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/what-happens-when-a-sperm-donor-doesnt-disclose-a-genetic-disorder-2514416

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BPA, A HIDDEN CAUSE OF PCOS AND INFERTILITY?

left and right ovaries showing evidence of PCOS

Most of us know by now that our environment has a lot to do with the state of our overall health and unfortunately this includes our reproductive health as well.

Below is a link to a study done by Researchers in the UK and Greece which say that women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) have a significantly higher burden of bisphenol A (BPA) than other women. BPA,  a chemical in our environment, is a known estrogenic hormone disrupter.


Read more:- http://www.ovarian-cysts-pcos.com/news124.html

From the site:

“The study compared 71 women with PCOS to 100 "normal" women. All women were subdivided into lean and overweight groups.

All together, the PCOS women had 1.5 times the amount of BPA in their blood than the other women did.

The lean PCOS women had 1.6 times the amount compared to other lean women. The overweight PCOS women had 1.3 times as much as the other overweight women.

The overweight women tended to have lower BPA levels in their blood than the lean ones. We can speculate that in the overweight women, they have more BPA stored in their fat cells and not as much in their blood. Fat cells are excellent storage sites for many environmental chemicals.”

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LIGHT MOMENT FRIDAYS – Feature 17

Sure hope this will lighten your day.....

"THE RACE IS NOT FOR THE SWIFT........."

The other day, our son was playing race with his six year old cousin and their grandmother was keeping score. His  cousin won all the races, after which she celebrated and tell her grandmother, ‘one point for me none for Theodore.’ Our son was not amused, so after each loss he would cry. I then heard his grandmother telling him that it is not nice to cry when he loses. I thought to myself, who likes to lose. When I was in primary school and would run a race and be placed last, I was usually so humiliated to the point of tears, so what says a four year old, whose opponent (his cousin) celebrates so jubilantly after each win.

Anyway, that is not really the light moment that I want to write about. This week at our son’s  Summer School, they had a sports day and he was chosen to run the lime and spoon race for his house. I had great hopes for him because he likes to run around the house a lot and especially when it is time for his bath. The other day his grandfather watched him run and was amazed at how he takes his corners at such high speed, so I concluded in my mind that he would  make a good runner. ‘On your mark’  and they were off. Our son held on to his spoon with such a steady grip, that the lime did not fall from the he spoon once.  As he walked down the track, he was busy watching the scenery in front of him as all his opponents limes fell many times and they picked them up,all with great purpose to win this race.

Our son never seemed bothered about winning at all, neither did he seem interested in whether the lime fell or not, he just seemed more interested in the scenery that was unfolding  in front of him. The officials waited patiently as he was the last to reached the finished line. He finished his race as composed as he started, with not one drop of tear.

When I told my husband and his grandmother, they had a good laugh.