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Surrogacy: Have we really progressed to “made to order” babies?

Laschell and Paul Baker holding the twins she bore July 28 as a surrogate mother. She got a court order to retrieve them.

After years of infertility, Amy Kehoe and her husband, Scott, became desperate to “create” a baby, causing untold numbers to question their “made to order” method.  Some would even call Amy Kehoe a “general contractor.”  The story which unfolded brings many ethical and moral questions to the practice of third-party reproduction.

Generally speaking, a “general contractor” talks to subs they might want to work with.  They look at qualifications, they accept bids, sign a contract, and let the subs perform the contracted work.

Amy Kehoe picked out a pre-med student from the University of Michigan to be an egg donor.  She then selected an anonymous sperm donor from the web site California Cryobank.  His qualifications were a 4.0 high school grade-point average and athletic.

Then Amy Kehoe found someone to carry and deliver her baby, also known as a surrogate.  She also located a fertility clinic which would “assemble” her baby.

The couple paid for the egg, the sperm. as well as a surrogate willing to undergo in vitro fertilization.  While their roles did not include traditional methods of procreation, Kehoe said, “They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for us.”

On July 28, the Kehoes welcomed the birth of Ethan and Bridget at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  The happy family went home from the hospital on August 3 to meet the rest of their family.  But the question arises, “Exactly who was their extended family?”

The surrogate mother, Laschell Baker, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, then learned that Amy Kehoe was being treated for mental illness.  She filed for and obtained a court order to take custody of Bridget and Ethan.  After having the babies in their home for approximately one month, the Kehoes were forced to relinquish custody to.  The twins will now be raised by Laschell Baker and her husband, Paul.

“I couldn’t see living the rest of my life worrying and wondering what had happened, or what if she hadn’t taken her medicine, or what if she relapsed,” said Mrs. Baker, who has four children of her own.

According to the New York Times piece written on this story, approximately 750 babies are born each year in the United States through gestational surrogacy.  Some reports claim that more than twice that many surrogate pregnancies are attempted.

The birth of this set of twins raised many challenging questions for the best of family law — or contract law — lawyers.  Instead of the normal two, or maybe even three, people involved in the birth of a child, more than five parties were involved in Ethan and Bridget’s creation and birth:  the egg donor, the sperm donor, Laschell Baker (and her husband), Amy and Scott Kehoe, as well as the two separate services which brokered the egg and the sperm.

The profound legal implications may haunt these two innocent children the rest of their lives.

To read more about the legal complexities of surrogacy, read the following:

21st Century Babies:  The Gift of Life and Its Price

21st Century Babies: Risky Path to Parenthood

21st Century Babies:  Made to Order

         

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Pregnant Padma Lakshmi Strips Down for the Cover of Page Six Magazine

The Top Chef host, who is pregnant with her first child, poses in nothing but jewelry and a blanket as she graces the cover of Page Six magazine.

Although Padma Lakshmi was willing to reveal her body, she still would not reveal who the father of her baby is. Padma married Salman Rushdie in 2004 and the couple divorced in 2007. Speculation continues to mount on who exactly the father is and if it is indeed Salman.

The baby is due to arrive in early spring. The television host and former model announced the pregnancy in October

On baby weight Padma says in the magazine, “One of the reasons I think I’ve gained weight pretty quickly during my pregnancy is that I’m not exercising as much as I do normally… I can’t. I’m feeling tired, and I have this business to run.”

She added, “You can eat and work out, or you can be the person who only eats a cucumber every day. I’d get really irritable if all I ate was a cucumber, so I have to work hard.”

Padma says that after her divorce she is still reassembling the pieces of her life. her main concentration is now on her baby and new business ventures. She will be releasing a jewelry line at  Bergdorf Goodman and the American 24-hour shopping channel, Home Shopping Network.

She added that she is surprised that she gets recognized everywhere she goes.

“I went to a bar mitzvah on the Upper East Side last year, and not to toot my own horn, but I might as well have been Michael Jackson to these 13-year-old boys and girls. There were something like 30 children around me, and they were all practically hyperventilating. I had this swarm of little kids going, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!”

This is the first child for Padma who suffers from the medical condition called endometriosis, which can cause infertility. She calls this her miracle baby as she never thought she would be able to have a child with the condition.

         

Jenna Jameson Worries What Her Boys Will Think About Her Past

The 35-year old mother of two Jenna Jameson filmed a recent episode of the Oprah Winfrey showed and admitted that she worries about what her twin boys will think about her adult film star career when they are older.

Recently Pamela Anderson, who has posed for Playboy several times came out saying she is dealing with her past with her two sons now that they are older and other kids know their mom’s past. Apparently, ex-adult film star Jenna Jameson says she worries about the same thing.

Jameson says that she is proud of her success but wonders what her life would be like if she never entered the pornography business.

Jenna has since retired from the industry and is a stay at home mom of her twin 7-month-old boys Jesse and Journey. She reveals that she struggled with infertility with years but now that she has children she struggles with other things.

“The moment you become a porn star, you will always be a porn star for the rest of your life,” says Jenna. “I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say to my sons, but I do know that I want them to understand that their mother loves them. I don’t worry about what people think. I worry about what my sons think.”

She also added that when she was a young actress in the business she had only one thing on her mind.  “I wanted to be the number one porn star in the world, and I wanted to do it with dignity,” she says. “I wanted to change things because this industry was run by men.”

The father of Jenna’s children is her boyfriend UFC fighter Tito Ortiz.

         

‘Miscarriage is an inherent part of human reproduction’

Miscarriages are traumatic experiences, but they are typically the body’s way of performing quality control.

Most women that have had a miscarriage will tell you that it was a very emotional experience, having felt helpless about the situation. However, miscarriages are a natural part of the female body’s processes and aren’t uncommon occurrences. In fact, doctors suggest that up to 50 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, sometimes so early that the woman isn’t aware of it.

Genetic abnormalities are the cause of miscarriage during the first trimester in half of all cases, doctors say, and miscarriages are the body’s natural way of eliminating those abnormalities.

“Miscarriage is an inherent part of human reproduction,” infertility expert Sanjeev Khurd told The Times of India.

“The problem of pregnancy loss or miscarriage, especially repeated pregnancy loss, is as frustrating and agonizing for couples as is the problem of infertility, since in both cases, the couple remains childless and emotionally traumatized.”

Giving more details, Khurd said: “Two-third of these reproductive losses occur very early and are pre-clinical, as they occur when the pregnancy is diagnosed with a positive urine test but is yet to be detected on sonography. One-third of the losses are clinical as they occur after the pregnancy is confirmed on sonography evaluation.”

Dr. Murray Feingold, chief physician of the National Birth Defects Center in Waltham, Mass. in the United States, told the Milford Daily News: “The majority of times, the cause of the miscarriage cannot be determined. But there are known causes, such as anatomical problems involving the reproductive organs, hormonal abnormalities, infections and genetic issues.”

In most cases, women that have had a miscarriage will go on to have a healthy baby later. However, in some cases, miscarriage may be a product of age, says Sanjay Gupte, gynecologist and president-elect of the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Society of India.

“This chromosomal abnormality of the embryo is a chance occurrence and unlikely to be repeated at the second conception,” said Gupte. “Hence, 80 per cent of mothers have the chance to have a normal baby despite the history of a previous miscarriage. However, some women are doomed for repeated pregnancy losses.”

Gupte added: “The chance of miscarriage also increases in women after the age of 35 years. The incidence rises to 26 per cent in women at the age of 40 years. This is primarily due to the fact that ageing oocytes (eggs) have a higher incidence of chromosomal abnormalities.”

Dr. Feingold believes that women that suffer repeated instances of miscarriage should receive an evaluation to determine deeper underlying causes. “If the cause is uncovered, frequently, something can be done to correct the problem,” he said.

Feingold added: “Maintaining good health improves a woman’s chance of not having a miscarriage. If you have had two or more miscarriages, it is important that you undergo an evaluation to try to determine the cause.”

         

Artificial sperm and eggs created in the laboratory

Human Sperm and eggs have been grown in the laboratory in a breakthrough process that could change parenthood forever. Infertile men and women could have children that are biologically their own.

Moral and ethical concerns are high, particularly as children being born through entirely artificial means becomes possible, leaving men and women sidelined from the process of making babies.

The U.S. government-funded research, published in the prestigious journal Nature, centres on stem cells, ‘master cells’.

Stanford University scientists found the right cocktail of chemicals and vitamins to coax the cells into turning into eggs and sperm.

The sperm had heads and short tails and are thought to have been mature enough to fertilize an egg.

The eggs were at a much earlier stage but were still much more developed than any created so far by other scientists.

The double success raises the prospect of men and women one day ‘growing’ their own sperm and eggs for use in IVF treatments.

The American team used stem cells taken from embryos in the first days of life but hope to repeat the process with slivers of skin.

The skin cells would first be exposed to a mixture that wound back their biological clocks to embryonic stem cell state, before being transformed into sperm or eggs.

Starting with a person’s own skin would also mean the lab-grown sperm or eggs would not be rejected by the body.

The breakthrough could also unlock many of the secrets of egg and sperm production, leading to new drug treatments for infertility, a little understood condition that affects one in six couples.

Defects in sperm and egg development are the biggest cause of infertility but, because many of the key stages occur in the womb, scientists have struggled to study the process in detail.

A greater understanding of the process could also produce a pill that slows the ageing of a woman’s own stock of eggs, delaying menopause.

Dr Allan Pacey, a Sheffield University expert in male fertility said: ‘Ultimately this may help us find a cure for male infertility.

‘Not necessarily by making sperm in the laboratory, I personally think that it unlikely but by identifying new targets for drugs or genes that may stimulate sperm production to occur naturally.

‘This is a long way off, but it is a laudable dream.’

But critics say it is wrong to meddle with the building blocks of life.

Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said that IVF should be the preserve of married couples.

He said: ‘We are very keen to promote ethical IVF treatments which respect the sanctity of life and the marriage bond.

‘The question is, why are we creating artificial gametes (eggs and sperm) and aborting 200,000 babies a year when there are many, many couples willing to adopt?’

Anthony Ozimic, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: ‘As with IVF, artificial insemination and the use of donor gametes, the use of artificial gametes in reproduction would distort and damage relations between family members.

‘There are no instances of any major medical advance achieved by abandoning basic ethical principles such as safeguarding the right to life.’

Dr Reijo Pera said any future use of artificial eggs and sperm would have to be subject to guidelines.

She said: ‘Whether one builds the boundaries on religion or just on an internal sense of right and wrong, these are important.

‘In this field, it is not “anything goes”.’

         

IVF treatment in Scotland found to be a ‘postcode lottery’

IVF treatment in Scotland could be had in as little as six months or as long as three years prompting some to ask for more consistency within the system.

A recent freedom of information request made by the Scottish Labour party discovered a huge disparity in wait times between IVF clinics in Scotland. Dumbarton MSP, Jackie Baillie, contacted all of Scotland’s health boards after being prompted by a constituent about IVF wait times.

She found that some of the worst wait times were to be found in NHS Lothian, where prospective mothers might have to wait as long as three years for IVF treatment. NHS Borders had the lowest wait times with no waiting lists and a promise of treatment within six months of referral.

“The Scottish Government must take action to end the postcode lottery for IVF treatment,” said Ms. Baillie. “It is unfair that patients in some parts of Scotland have to wait three years for treatment when others are treated in less than 12 months.”

“There is also no consistency in the rules,” she added. “NHS Borders will fund patients for treatment in neighboring areas if they have shorter waiting lists, but other Health Boards refuse to consider such a sensible step.”

As the director of strategic planning and modernization at NHS Lothian, Jackie Sansbury said that that NHS Lothian follows the guidelines set by the Scottish government for the provision if fertility services.

“In Lothian, unlike many other health boards, couples are offered three cycles of IVF,” Sansbury told the BBC. “We are working with the Scottish Government and infertility services to establish a common pattern of provision across the country.”

“As part of a review of our fertility services we are investing an additional £180,000 to increase the number of IVF cycles we are able to offer by around 40 percent during 2009-2010.”

Shona Robison, the public health minister of Scotland said that she is aware of the level of demand for IVF and that work is being done “to make access as fair as possible.”

“We are funding Infertility Network Scotland—an organization of past and present patients—to work with boards to ensure fairer access. Together they will consider the best ways to address waiting times and local differences in access to treatment,” she said.

“We’re also setting up the Expert Group on Infertility to make recommendations on issues including waiting times. Within six months I expect them to submit an interim report to me and I expect to see quick progress on the ground too.”

         

Stress may impact male fertility

Stress hormones and a common chemical in plastics, when combined, may cause fertility problems for male babies while in the womb.

Researchers at Edinburgh University have found that high levels of stress hormones mixed with a common chemical found in plastics severely inhibited male fetal development in rats.

The study gave some pregnant rats the chemical compound dibutyl phthalate, a chemical found in many household goods including credit cards and vinyl shower curtains. Afterwards, some of the rats were injected with a stress hormone while others were not.

Of those rats that were only dosed with phthalate, there were some adverse effects to fetal development noted. However, those rats that received both phthalate and stress hormone showed significantly high levels of reproductive birth defects in the offspring.

The study may be applicable to humans and may help to shed light on why there is an increasing rate of male babies born with reproductive defects. A condition called cryptorchidism—when the testicles do not drop—affects nearly seven percent of British boys, and often leads to infertility.

Edinburgh University’s Dr. Mandy Drake said, “What the study shows is that it is not simply a case of one factor in isolation contributing to abnormalities in male development but a combination of both lifestyle and environmental factors, which together have a greater impact.”

“In most studies reproductive disorders are only seen after abnormally high levels of exposure to chemicals, which most humans are not exposed to.”

“Our study suggests that additional exposure to stress, which is a part of everyday life, may increase the risk of these disorders and could mean that lower levels of chemicals are required to cause adverse affects.”

The study, performed in collaboration with the Medical Research Council’s human reproductive sciences unit, was published in the journal Endocrinology.

         

How to get pregnant? Relax… for a 160% greater chance.

Many women asking how to get pregnant have been told to just stop stressing about it. It’s now an idea that doctors at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Atlanta, have been presented. Backed by research, stress management may become part of a holistic approach to infertility.

Alice Domar presented her findings, discovered that women who participated in a stress management program while having a second round of fertility treatment had a 160 percent greater pregnancy rate than women getting IVF alone. Alice runs a fertility center in Boston and also works at Harvard Medical School

97 patients at the clinic took part in a 10-session mind and body program while undergoing treatments of in-vitro fertilization.

The program had no effect on how many women conceived during the first try, Domar told the meeting, with 43 percent of the women getting pregnant.

However, women who failed the first time and were having a second attempt, 52 percent who took part in the mind and body program became pregnant. This compared to only 20 percent of those who did not.

Alice Domar said in a statement: “Reproductive health experts have long wondered about the impact that stress may have on fertility, thus impeding a woman’s ability to conceive,

“This study shows that stress management may improve pregnancy rates, minimizing the stress of fertility management itself, improving the success rates of IVF procedures, and ultimately, helping to alleviate the emotional burden for women who are facing challenges trying to conceive.”

         

Fertility tests in a box are unreliable say experts

High Street fertility tests, such as the one’s produced by Fertell and available off-the-shelf or purchased online are unreliable in estimating childbearing years left, experts claim. They were valuable however for women undergoing IVF.

Women increasingly use either the blood or urine test to see how long they can continue their careers without having children. Tests do show how many eggs a woman has remaining, but they don’t reveal the quality or other underlying barriers to conception. Blocked Fallopian tubes, a major cause of infertility are also not part of the, “high street” test.

The tests measure the levels of Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) which triggers the development of immature eggs in the ovaries and levels of the hormone fluctuate during a normal menstrual cycle. Levels also rise during the menopause, when the body tries to stimulate the ovaries into producing more oestrogen to compensate for a natural fall in levels of the hormone. Unexpectedly high or low levels of FSH in women of a fertile age may indicate fertility or hormonal problems.

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine conference in Atlanta was the venue for Dr Todd Deutch, managing director of the Advanced Fertility Centre in Chicago, to unveil the findings yesterday. Dr Deutch concluding that the tests can be useful in IVF because they can determine why some women have difficulty in conceiving.

Dr Deutch said however this did not mean they were useful for women who want to conceive naturally, saying we should be “very, very careful in extrapolating this data to women not undergoing IVF.

“These tests don’t tell the whole story,

“Even if both tests are normal, the live birth rate is 50 to 60 per cent - it’s not 100 per cent. Both tests being normal by no means guarantees that a woman won’t have any problems conceiving.

“For example, a woman could suffer other problems like blocked fallopian tubes, or her partner may have a problem.”

The research team found levels were abnormal in just 2.5 per cent of IVF cycles. However, in the abnormal group miscarriage rates were extremely high and pregnancy rates extremely low, given the age of the patients.

Dr Deutch said: ‘We found that if the FSH level was abnormal the live birth rate fell to 35 per cent.’ This showed the tests were valuable for women undergoing IVF.

A spokeswoman from Infertility Network UK, Susan Seenan said: ‘We would stress that women should be careful not to rely solely on home test results as an accurate indicator of future fertility and would recommend to all couples that if they have any concerns about their fertility they speak to the GP for further investigations.

Women under 35 who have had trouble conceiving for a year or more can see their GP and will be invited for further fertility tests.

         

Padma Lakshmi Says She Has a “Little Buddha Belly” Now

Padma Lakshmi

After having to keep her pregnancy a secret in the beginning due to her struggle with endometriosis, Padma is now ready to share her news with everyone with her “Buddha belly.”

During an appearance on Live With Regis and Kelly, Padma says that her pregnancy was “was a little touch and go, but everything is fabulous.”

The Top Chef host just recently announced that she was pregnant with her first child after dealing with endometriosis. Endometriosis is a painful condition that can case infertility in women and doctors have said that Padma’s pregnancy is a miracle.

Padma noted, “Now that I’ve told everyone, I think my body has relaxed and my stomach has just said, ‘Alright!’ I wasn’t really showing that much and the last four days I’ve just got this little Buddha belly.”

Padma also shared that she has not suffered from any morning sickness and so far her pregnancy has been pretty easy. In fact, she joked, “I was already eating for two!”

The former model says that she is craving avocadoes and “beef steak tomatoes for breakfast with the eggs.” She also says that she has not changed her eating habits at all except for not eating raw sushi. She says, “I don’t eat sushi so much, but there are a lot of things in sushi that people don’t realize…you can still go eat sushi, you just have crab or other things. Ask your doctor because every pregnancy is different.”

Padma is due in late March/early April. She has not revealed who the father of the baby is.

         

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