Aurora magazine

Baylor College of Medicine researchers have shown that folthstatin plays a key role in embryo implantation. They have thus identified a new element of female fertility. The study helped to better understand how the uterus works and why sometimes it fails. It will also help raise the success rate of assisted reproduction technologies.

Embryo implantation in the uterus is a process that requires high coordination. It involves a large number of proteins needed to communicate embryo and mother to each other. When communication fails, the embryo does not stick to the uterus and its development stops.

The mechanisms behind embryo implantation aroused the interest of many researchers, especially those involved in assisted fecundation. Failure to plant is in fact the cause of most failures in in vitro fertilization. Understand why this is the only way to increase successes.

It was already known that phollistatin protein increases the receptivity of the uterus to the embryo. It is in fact the decidualization of endometrium, the set of processes that make the uterus pregnant. When decidualization occurs, follo-statin levels rise. However, the researchers have noticed that the levels rise even earlier, during the implant. They then created animal models without folliculine and measured fertility.

Follistatin-free females have given less and less often light. Observations showed that embryos did not stick to the uterus of these cavities, slipping away. The shortage may therefore be behind the failure of many plants in the human being. According to researchers, this could be the key to improving the chances of successful assisted fertilization procedures.

Source: bcm.edu

Doctors have always associated lithium in pregnancy with an increase in congenital cardiac malformations in the baby. A study by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has shown that the influence of the drug is much less significant.

Pregnancy lithium consumption has been associated with a 400-fold greater risk for the child of Ebstein's abnormality, a congenital heart malformation. It was also linked to a risk of 5 times greater heart failure during childhood if taken early in pregnancy. Nevertheless, a new study resizes these numbers. According to the authors, the risk of heart defects would be 2 cases per 100 children, versus 1 case per 100 children of the standard.

The 1979 report included data for 225 children exposed to lithium in the mother's womb. Of these, 18 had developed congenital heart defects and 6 had Ebstein's abnormality. Considerations on the dangers of lithium in pregnancy have always been based on these data. This has led many women with bipolar disorder to avoid pregnancy, or to stop drug therapy.

Studies following 1979 have always been small and suspected of conflict of interest. Those few reliable, albeit low, have however failed to show a strong correlation between lithium and Ebstein's abnormality, heart disease and congenital malformations.

The new discovery suggests that lithium use during the first trimester is associated with a 2-fold greater risk of cardiac malformations. A significant number, but far less than the one reported in the 1979 report. In addition, the risk would largely depend on the dose. This reduces the relationship between treatment benefits and risk to the fetus.

The authors of the study analyzed over 1.3 million pregnancies between 2000 and 2010. They sought a possible association between infant heart malformations and maternal lithium intake during pregnancy. They compared the data of who was exposed to lithium during the first trimester, who was not exposed and those exposed to similar drugs.

Cardiac malformations were present in 16 children on 663 exposed to lithium and in 15,251 out of 1,322,955 unexposed. So there are 24 cases per 1,000 in the first group, against 11 every 1,000 in the second. Analysis of children exposed to similar drugs has given similar results.

Source: medicalxpress.com

According to a Belgian-Australian study, just too little alcohol in pregnancy to alter the somatic traits of the baby. The team has discovered that an exposure also has minimal impact on the development of nose, cheeks and eyes. This is a further test of how pregnant alcohol is completely avoided.

Research was conducted by Murdoch Children's Research Institute researchers on over 400 pregnant women. The researchers analyzed maternal habit and mapped somatic traits in children. Observations have continued even after the birth of children, for about 1 year.A US CDC study of 2015 showed that 1 woman out of 10 consumes alcohol during gestation. This despite knowing that excess alcohol in pregnancy can cause physical and psychic deficits in the baby. Some of these problems are.

A US CDC study of 2015 showed that 1 woman out of 10 consumes alcohol during gestation. This despite knowing that excess alcohol in pregnancy can cause physical and psychic deficits in the baby. Some of these problems are birth weight too low, problems in learning, hearing and vision problems.

Belgian-Australian research is part of the Aqua Study, which involved more than 1,600 women to understand the consequences of alcohol in pregnancy. The study analyzed how different levels of prenatal alcohol affect somatic traits. Scientists have provided mothers with questionnaires on alcohol consumption in the 3 months prior to conception and during the first trimester. One year after childbirth, they used a 3-D facial analysis technique to map the faces of 415 children.
Researchers labeled "low consumption" less than 20 grams of alcohol per hour and less than 70 per week. They considered "moderate consumption" 21-49 grams per turn and less than 70 per week. They are labeled as "high consumption" more than 50 grams each.

According to collected data, moderate consumption of alcohol is enough to influence the child's somatic traits. The most significant consequences are with consumption during the first quarter. The anomalies are invisible to the naked eye, but still present and measurable. They mainly focus around nose, lips and eyes.

Source: medicalnewstoday.com

Assisted fertilization techniques have helped thousands of couples conceive. Prenatal screening tests, on the other hand, provide information on the health of the fetus. Nonetheless, according to some researches, assisted fertilization would be detrimental to the child's cognitive abilities. A study by Dr Melissa Mills's team at Oxford University denies this theory.

The researchers started from the Millennium Cohort Study data. The study follows today more than 18,500 children born in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2001. The researchers submitted the children to cognitive tests between 3 and 11 years. Among these were 125 children born from in vitro fertilization and 61 by intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Children between 3 and 5 years of age from assisted fecundation received higher marks in cognitive tests. Vows normalized around the age of 11, still remaining slightly above the average of peers. This means that conception does not affect the child's basic intellectual level.

What has more to do with intellectual abilities is the familiar background. Those who use IVF often have a high level of education and are more mature than those who naturally conceive. This also affects the education of the child. Probably this explains the most positive results of child children of assisted fecundation.

Source: medicaldaily.com