Ivf

Heavy smokers are less likely to become pregnant through IVF treatment, even with donated eggs, fertility experts have found. Smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day, they said, makes the womb less receptive to the embryo and reduces the odds that it will implant and result in a pregnancy. Smoking has been known to affect a woman's fertility, but Dr.

NOT BEING ABLE to conceive children--a feat that most people do without much effort--is one of the biggest stress factors a marriage can endure," says JoBeth Williams, a Los Angeles actress who tried unsuccessfully for six years to have a child before finally deciding to adopt. For infertile couples such as Williams and her husband, sex can become a clinical task, dictated by the woman's menstrual cycle and by doctor's orders.

In response to negative publicity about the success rates of in vitro fertilization, a local infertility clinic is offering a 90% refund of medical service fees to selected patients who don't get pregnant after undergoing IVF.

Two weeks ago, Brianna Morrison gave birth to six babies in Minneapolis. Less than a day later, Jenny Masche delivered six babies in a Phoenix hospital. Both of the women had been treated for infertility and had used fertility-enhancing drugs. The two families expressed joy, but many fertility doctors were dismayed. For years, doctors have been pushing to lower the rate of multiple births due to fertility treatment.

Re "Skin cell is made to mimic stem cell," June 7 Now that we may have an unquestionably ethical alternative to cell reprogramming, is there any justification for continuing to support embryonic stem cell research? I can think of only two reasons why an individual or organization might continue to do so: unfamiliarity with or indifference to the ethical issues involved or the passion to see the routine destruction of the unborn person at every stage of development inextricably interwoven into the fabric of our society and culture.

Diane Clegg, a 35-year-old American, dearly hopes to become pregnant before she moves back to Atlanta in January. She can't afford it at home. Clegg is having "in vitro" fertilization, the "test-tube baby" technique which costs more than twice as much in the United States as in Britain, where it was invented 17 years ago.

BIOPSIES are a pain. When they're medically necessary we put up with them. When they're not, most of us would just as soon remain un-punctured. When the patient is a 3-day-old embryo, it's especially fair to ask for some evidence of a clear medical benefit. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, is a procedure sometimes performed in conjunction with in vitro fertilization to improve the quality of the embryos selected.

A decade ago, there were just two in vitro fertilization programs in the United States to help infertile couples conceive. Today, the American Fertility Society reports there are 192 IVF programs across the nation. But nowhere, says the society, is the baby-making boom bigger than in Southern California, home to at least 18 IVF centers, most based in hospitals or universities.

During their four years of marriage, Lisa and Bill Holst repeatedly failed in their attempts to have a baby. So last spring, the El Toro couple went to an infertility specialist to discover the cause and cure of a problem that affects one in five American couples of reproductive age. "We were shocked to find out that I was seven weeks pregnant," Lisa, 24, recalled recently as Bill, 26, sat on a couch beside her in the living room of their cheerfully decorated condominium.