Jennifer Aniston gives her views on sperm donation

In her new movie, The Switch, Jennifer Aniston plays a wannabe mother who undergoes artificial insemination, using what she believes is the perfect donor's sperm, to get pregnant.

And when it comes to off screen it seems Aniston would allow life to imitate art, insisting that if she ever went that route she too would definitely 'wanna know the guy'.

Aniston revealed her preference during an appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, last night in Los Angeles.

For more details of the interview follow this link: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1298927/Jennifer-Aniston-shows-lovely-legs--talks-sperm-donors--The-Tonight-Show.html

Indonesia bans sperm banks in Country

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has declared that the presence of sperm bank in the country was haram or prohibited.

"Sperm donor is haram, so is sperm bank," MUI edict commission deputy secretary Asrorun Ni'am Sholeh said as quoted by kompas.com on Tuesday.

However, MUI allowed the establishment of breast milk banks in the country.

"A breast milk bank could be established as long as it meets the first requirement that there is an agreement between the baby parents and a breast milk donor including a payment to the donor," he said.

He added Islam banned two babies breastfed by one woman from marrying each other in the future.

For more on the story follow the link: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/28/sperm-bank-prohibited-indonesian-ulema-council.html

Article examines whether children of sperm donation loose their heritage...

"I've had this recurring dream of floating through darkness ... whirling faster and faster ... I get weary and want to put my feet down to stand ... but there's nothing to stand on. This is my nightmare -- I'm a person created by donor insemination, someone who will never know half of her identity. I feel anger and confusion, and I'm filled with questions. Whose eyes do I have? Why the big secret? Who gave my family the idea that my biological roots are not important? To deny someone the knowledge of his or her biological origins is dreadfully wrong."

Margaret R. Brown, Newsweek, 1994

What are we doing to the children? To the estimated 30,000 to 60,000 who are conceived each year in the United States using sperm from anonymous donors? To the thousands of donor-conceived offspring born each year in Canada and around the world?

We live in an age when artificial reproductive technologies are mainstream. Eggs and sperm obtained in one country can be transferred to a surrogate in another, for a couple who are playing reproductive tourists in a third. But in our rush to ensure that every couple has some means of creating a child, we have neglected to adequately consider what this potpourri of gametes and technologies might be doing to the resulting children.

That answer is now in. Last week, the Institute for American Values released a report that compares the experiences of donor offspring with adopted children and children who were raised by their biological parents.

My Daddy's Name is Donor is the first large-scale study to take a comprehensive look at the well-being of adults aged 18 to 45 who were conceived with anonymous donor sperm.

As Brown suggested, these adults struggle with issues of origins and identities. Sixtyfive per cent agreed that, "my sperm donor is half of who I am," 69 per cent wonder if the donor would want to know them and 48 per cent feel sad when their friends talk about their biological parents.

Forty-three per cent feel confused about who is a member of their family and who isn't -- compared to 15 per cent of adopted persons and six per cent of those raised by their biological parents.

The identity phenomenon described by donor offspring is known as genetic or genealogical bewilderment. There is a fear of what unknown traits and predispositions may lie inside their cells.

Brown wrote: "All the love and attention in the world can't mask that underlying feeling that something is askew ... like I'm borrowing someone else's family."

An innate need for connection and a biological heritage is lacking and the study demonstrates it can make a disturbing difference to the well-being of offspring.

Donor offspring are significantly more likely than those raised by their biological parents to struggle with serious negative outcomes. Donor and adopted offspring are twice as likely to report problems with the law. Donor offspring are 1.5 times more likely to report mental-health problems and more than twice as likely to have problems with substance abuse.

Those numbers go even higher for donor offspring of single mothers and those whose parents kept their origins a secret.

Technology may be able to surpass the limits of reproductive biology, but it can't replace that innate desire to know who you are and where you've come from.

How can we, in good conscience, continue to use gametes from anonymous donors to create a generation of children who have no knowledge of their biological, social and medical history?

As Brown said, "I can understand a couple's desire for a child and I don't deny that they can provide a great amount of love and caring, no matter how conception occurs ... [But] I don't see how anyone can consciously rob someone of something as basic and essential as heritage."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/children+sperm+donors+robbed+their+heritage/3308010/story.html#ixzz0uoJXHWHg

Quad sisters born 12 weeks prematurely all home at last after epic hospital battle for survival

Proud parents Gillian Holden and Marc Hanley brought the last of their four baby daughters home, seven months after they were born.

Mother Gillian, who defied odds of 750,000 to one to conceive the quadruplets naturally, had fallen ill with pre-eclampsia during the pregnancy.

Doctors were forced to perform an emergency caeasarian to deliver the babies when her organs began to fail.

Born prematurely at just 28 weeks in January, the four baby girls had weighed just 7lb 6oz between them and had been separated from birth as they required specialist care to nurture them through the first few months of their lives.

For more on this story follow the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1297721/Quad-sisters-born-12-weeks-prematurely-home-epic-hospital-battle-survival.html#ixzz0uoDxHe1Y

Couples with fertility problems forced to advertise for egg donors due to national shortage

Desperate women with fertility problems have been placing newspaper adverts in a bid to find egg donors due to a national shortage, it emerged today.

Egg donations have declined steadily in recent years, following a change in the law in 2005 that allows children to trace donor parents.
Now with waiting lists stretching to over a year for donor eggs, some women have been placing appeals in local newspapers in their efforts to conceive.

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'We have been trying for a family for a long time but now we need to find an egg donor,' it read.
'Could you be that special person to help our dreams of a family come true?'
Mrs Smith, who has struggled to stert a family after she had a fallopian tube removed, was faced with a year-long wait for eggs before she could begin IVF treatment at the CARE Fertility Clinic in Northampton.
She said: 'My husband and I have everything we could want apart from a child. I want desperately to be a mum and I want the child to be my husband's.' 
The advert explains that egg donors will be fast tracked to her if they are received by the clinic.
Previously, donors were guaranteed anonymity and their details could not be released to their biological children.
But changes to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 2005 lifted the automatic anonymity granted to donors.

For more info on this story please follow the link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1295016/Couples-fertility-problems-forced-advertise-egg-donors-national-shortage.html

One In Six Teenagers Pregnant By Age Of 18

One in six teenage girls has been pregnant by the age of 18, new figures show. Just under half (46%) decided to keep their baby, while more than a third (36%) had an abortion.

The figures are in a study of 8,500 teenagers for the Department for Education.

More than eight out of ten said they were sexually active and almost one in five of these admit they had been pregnant at least once by the age of 18.

Almost eight in 10 (79%) had been expecting a baby on one occasion, nearly one in five (18%) had been pregnant twice, and 3% had been pregnant at least three times.

Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in western Europe - even though they are at a 20-year low - and last year there were more than 39,000 abortions in girls aged between 15 and 19 in England and Wales.

For more on this story follow the link: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/One-In-Six-Teenagers-Pregnant-By-18-More-Than-A-Third-Chose-Abortions/Article/201007415669720?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15669720_One_In_Six_Teenagers_Pregnant_By_18%3A_More_Than_A_Third_Chose_Abortions

New test which predicts success of IVF is developed

U.S. researchers have developed a formula that can predict whether fertility treatment will succeed more accurately than using age alone, and used it to develop a commercial test.

They said their test, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, could save couples the agony and expense of multiple attempts to have babies using in vitro fertilization, also known as IVF.

Surprisingly, they said, the test showed that couples who would have been discouraged from trying again using traditional assessments were actually likely to succeed.

In IVF, egg and sperm are united in a lab dish and resulting embryos are implanted into the mother's uterus to grow. Predicting whether it will work is tricky and doctors rely heavily on a woman's age.

A team lead by Dr. Mylene Yao of Stanford University in California, decided to look at dozens of factors, including age but also looking at how well and how fast the embryos grow, a woman's hormonal response to the treatment and the condition of her uterus when the embryo is implanted.

They used data from more than 5,000 IVF cycles performed at Stanford Hospital from 2003 to 2008 and matched it to success rates.

"Since this model uses clinical data from a previously failed IVF attempt, a first IVF treatment can be viewed both as an infertility treatment and as a potential prognostic tool for future cycles," Yao said in a statement.

For more info on this story follow the link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66I4UD20100720