Researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have found that drinking chamomile tea was associated with a decreased risk of death from all causes in Mexican-American women over 65. The findings were recently published online in The Gerontologist.

Chamomile is one of the oldest, most-widely used and well-documented medicinal plants in the world and has been recommended for a variety of healing applications. It is currently widely used as an herbal remedy in Mexico and among Mexican-Americans.

The study examined a seven-year period during which researchers tracked the effects of chamomile and the cause of death in older Mexican- Americans. The researchers analyzed data from 1,677 women and men from the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly, a population-based study of Mexican-Americans aged 65 and older from five Southwestern states, including Texas. Fourteen percent of the people in the study drank chamomile tea.

The data showed that consuming chamomile was associated with a 29 percent decreased risk of death from all causes among women compared with nonusers, even after adjusting for demographics, health conditions and health behaviors. This effect was not present in men.

"The reason for a difference in our reported findings between Hispanic women and men is not clear, although women were shown to be more frequent users of chamomile than men," said Bret Howrey, assistant professor in the UTMB department of family medicine. "This difference may be due to traditional gender roles whereby women manage the day-to-day activities of the household, including family health, and may also reflect greater reliance on folk remedies such as herbs."

It is unclear how chamomile use is associated with decreased mortality. Recent studies of chamomile have shown potential benefits in treating hyperglycemia, upset stomach, diabetic complications and anxiety disorder. Chamomile has also been touted for its cholesterol-lowering, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anti-platelet effects. The exact pathway for the reduction in mortality represents an important area for future research.

9 Guys Wax Poetic About The Women They Loved Who "Got Away” They’ll never quite get over them. Shutterstock

If you don’t have a “one who got away” story, then count yourself among the fortunate. It’s never a fun tale to tell or reminisce about, but it is one that stays in the back of the mind probably forever, just waiting to pop up out of nowhere one day when you hear a certain song or smell a certain scent or see an otherwise unremarkable object that throws you into a super-strong fit of nostalgia where you ask yourself over and over something like, “What would have happened if we had made it work?”

For me, the woman who got away is named Cara. I fell in love with her shortly after we met at a local swimming pool when I was 13 years old. She was the first girl I ever had real, genuine romantic feelings for. And even as I've gotten older and had other experiences, I still can't help but think about the first girl I was truly in like with. When I smell suntan lotion or hear Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” or see a Pirates of the Caribbean movie on TV (it was our first date; my dad drove me to the theater), I am immediately jettisoned back to the brief times we were together through high school. I still think about her and I can’t help it. I actually just had a sex dream involving her not too long ago.

It didn’t work out because I f**ked things up. And she’s happily married now. But we remain friends, so I have that going for me. Which is nice.

RELATED: Confession: I Haven’t Had Sex in Almost Six Months

ANYWAY. Here are some other men's stories—you'll probably find them a little more insightful than mine.

“I loved her, but she was kind of crazy. I’m not saying crazy in the way that guys are like 'Oh, all girls are crazy!' I could tell you some stories. There was a lot of verbal abuse and stuff like that, but when we were in the middle of a good time, it was amazing. We loved being around each other, and the sex was awesome. Those are the things I can’t forget—the really, really good times. I was infatuated. But I also can’t forget the really, really bad times. Remembering those is how I keep from ever trying to go back to a relationship with her.” —Ryann C.

RELATED: Why Do Guys Often Call Their Exes “Crazy”? One Such Guy Offers Valuable Insight

“Her name was Claire, and I think the reason I can’t forget her is that she was definitely the first girl I really loved, which means that, for better or worse, I’ll probably be comparing all other women to her for the rest of my life. I think it’s unrealistic that we would have stayed together all through high school and then gotten married, especially since we ended up going to college across the country from one another, which is essentially why we eventually called it quits. But I still wonder what it would have been like if we did. I probably wouldn’t ever reconnect with her or anything, though. She dropped all contact with me a couple years ago because her boyfriend wanted her to. She could be engaged by now. Or dead. I really don’t know.” —Sam H.
 

“I think what we had, when we had it, it was so easy. I don’t know if it’s because I was younger or if it’s more of a credit to the great chemistry we had…it might be some combination of both, actually. I know that relationships aren’t exactly supposed to be easy, but we just really got along, never fought, really understood and respected each other. It didn’t end badly, just sadly. I chose to take a job opportunity that would put us far away from each other, and she did not want to do long distance or move from our hometown, so that was that. Maybe someday if both of us don’t end up married and we end up in the same town I’ll try and reconnect romantically with her, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. That’d be some serious Nicholas Sparks stuff.” —Vincent F.

RELATED: 4 Guys Share the Mushy Stuff They Would Write in Love Letters to Their Ladies

“We had a lot of problems that ultimately did us in, but my 'one who got away' was amazing. I still think about her all of the time. What I loved most about her was that she was one of the few people I’ve ever known who truly couldn’t care less what other people thought about her or what she was doing—like just literally did not give a sh*t, which mean she also didn’t care what people thought about what I was doing. It was amazing. I haven’t been with another girl like that since. I don’t think there will be any rekindling, though, because, like I said, we had a lot of other problems, ones that I think would probably creep back into our relationship if we tried to go another round.” —Noah R.
 

“Lisa was definitely the one. I still can’t get over hot pretty she is. In fact, I should probably stop following her on Instagram. It just hurts too much. I know this probably sounds shallow that her looks are what I always think about, but it’s true. I can’t believe I ever even had sex with her. I was totally batting out of my league, really outkicking my coverage. Sometimes, I still reach out to her, but nothing really comes of it. We’re friends, but that’s probably the extent of it. I bet she gets really good-looking guys a lot.” —Brad S.

“I miss her smile a lot. Is that corny? Yeah, for sure, but I do miss it. I sometimes remember how hard I would try to make her smile and how rewarding it was when she did.” —Simon M.

“Love can be a terrible thing because I’m pretty sure I’m still in love with this girl named Renee. It actually makes me mad at myself since we broke up because she cheated on me. She just had this kind of hold or power over me that I haven’t been able to really forget about. But we'll never be together again. Because she cheated on me!” —Amir L.
 

“We had a good thing going, but then when we were in 11th grade, her family moved. We tried to keep it going for a while, I even went and visited, but eventually, she called things off and moved on. It’s understandable. I don’t hold it against her, but I wish things would have been different. The thing I always think about is what the future might have been like if she hadn’t moved. But none of that matters now. She met another guy and married young. She has a couple kids now.” —Tyler F.

--

Scott Muska is a writer in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter @scottmuska or e-mail him at srm5082@gmail.com.

Many women with dense breasts do not need to have additional imaging carried out for breast cancer after having a normal mammogram, according to the findings of a new study.
Dense breasts increase the risk of breast cancer and increase the chances of cancer going undetected by a mammogram.

The authors of the study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, conclude that breast density should not be the sole criterion for deciding whether further imaging is justified, as not all women with dense breasts have high interval cancer rates.

Instead, women with specific types of dense breasts who have a high 5-year cancer risk should discuss the available options for additional screening with their doctors.

Dense breast tissue is composed of milk ducts, milk glands and supportive tissue and is a normal and common finding on a mammogram. Women are defined as having dense breasts if they have more dense breast tissue than fatty tissue.

As dense breast tissue appears as a solid white area on a mammogram, it can be difficult to see through and makes it more difficult for cancer to be detected using this imaging technique. Additionally, having dense breasts increases a woman's risk of developing cancer, although experts are currently unsure why.

The authors of the study report that 21 states have laws requiring that women be notified if they have dense breasts, with some recommending that they are advised to discuss additional imaging with health care professionals.

Although additional imaging can increase the chances of cancer detection, it can also increase the chance of a false-positive diagnosis. Certain forms of imaging can also be expensive or expose women to low levels of radiation.

The researchers set out to determine which combinations of breast cancer risk and breast density categories are associated with high interval cancer rates, and, therefore, determine which women with dense breasts would benefit from additional screening.

Data were analyzed from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) mammography registries from 2002 to 2011. This period included data for 365,426 women aged 40-74 undergoing a total of 831,455 digital screening mammography examinations.

Breast density was defined using Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) breast density categories. The categories of density are "almost entirely fatty," "scattered areas of fibroglandular density," "heterogeneously dense" and "extremely dense."

Over half of women with extremely dense breasts not at high risk of interval cancers

The researchers found that over half of the women with extremely dense breasts (52.5%) did not have a high risk for interval cancers - defined as invasive cancer detected within 12 months of a negative screening mammography.

Rates of interval cancer were highest among women with both extremely dense breasts and a 5-year breast cancer risk of 1.67% or more (as calculated by the BCSC), or women with both heterogeneously dense breasts and a 5-year breast cancer risk of 2.5% or greater.

High rates of false-positive results were also found on digital mammography among women with heterogeneously dense breasts and a 5-year breast cancer risk of less than 1.67%.

The authors note that their study is limited by not assessing the benefits of additional imaging. Taking into account their findings, however, the authors conclude that not all women with dense breasts were at a high enough risk to justify considering additional screening.

"BCSC 5-year risk combined with BI-RADS breast density can identify women at high risk for interval cancer to inform patient-provider discussions about alternative screening strategies," state the authors.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Nancy C. Dolan and Dr. Mita Sanghavi Goel, of Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, suggest that federal legislation should focus on identifying women at high risk for interval breast cancer, rather than additional screening for women with dense breasts.

Earlier this month, Medical News Today reported on new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealing that many adults in the US are failing to undergo the recommended screening tests for breast cancer. According to the report, around 1 in 4 women in the US are not up-to-date with breast cancer screening.

Written by James McIntosh

The anti-epilepsy drug valproate should be avoided whenever possible in women who may become pregnant due to a high risk of malformations and developmental problems in babies who are exposed to the drug before birth.

The guidance comes from a joint task force of the Commission of European Affairs of the International League Against Epilepsy and the European Academy of Neurology.

In an Epilepsia paper, the task force notes that it is also important that those women who need valproate to control their seizures are not denied the most effective treatment, as uncontrolled seizures can have serious consequences.

The experts' recommendations are based on risk-benefit assessments of different treatment alternatives in various clinical situations, considering teratogenic risks associated with use valproate and treatment alternatives, patient and fetal risks associated with seizures, and the effectiveness of various therapies against different types of epilepsy.

"The choice of treatment for a woman of childbearing potential should be based on a shared decision between clinician and the fully informed patient," said lead author Dr. Torbjörn Tomson.

Share -->PrintHomeGlobal Health PolicyKaiser Daily Global Health Policy ReportMay 13, 2015Income Inequality Limits Reproductive Rights Of Women In Latin America, BBC ReportsMay 13, 2015

BBC News: How inequality limits reproductive rights in Latin America
“…In five countries abortion is outlawed completely and heavy restrictions such as those in Paraguay are in place across the region. But this is not just an issue of competing liberal norms and conservative values. It is mainly about inequality in a region where the gulf between rich and poor remains huge. To access abortions, you either have to have the money to pay for illegal procedures or the funds to fly out of the country…” (Watson, 5/12).

MedicationsSupplements and Vitamins home > cancer center > cancer a-z list > mri might predict breast cancer risk in some women article

smallermediumlargerMRI Might Predict Breast Cancer Risk in Some WomenBreast Cancer Slideshow PicturesTake the Breast Cancer QuizDisease Prevention in Women Slideshow PicturesBy Amy Norton
HealthDay ReporterLatest Cancer News'Wiser' Surgeries for Those With Terminal CancersMRI Might Predict Breast Cancer Risk in Some WomenThey Overcame Childhood Cancer, But Now Obesity?Statins May Slow Prostate Cancer ProgressionMany Americans Don't Get Routine Cancer ScreeningsWant More News? Sign Up for MedicineNet Newsletters!

TUESDAY, May 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Women at high risk of breast cancer often have routine MRI scans to try to detect any tumors early. Now a new study hints the scans might also predict which women are most likely to develop cancer in the near future.

Researchers found that among high-risk women who had MRI screening, those with a particular feature in the scans -- namely, areas of background breast tissue that appear white -- were nine times more likely to develop breast cancer over the next couple of years.

The findings, published online May 12 in Radiology, suggest that MRIs could have value beyond detecting breast cancer.

"It's possible that down the line, we could use it to help predict which women will develop breast cancer," said Dr. Habib Rahbar, a radiologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who worked on the study.

Rahbar stressed the findings are based on a small number of women from one medical center, so they need to be confirmed in larger studies.

"These results are preliminary," he said. "But they're promising."

The technical term for the MRI finding is "background parenchymal enhancement." If it does, in fact, foretell a particularly high risk of breast cancer, that could help women and their doctors make some choices, Rahbar said.

Those women might want to be screened more often, or consider starting the drug tamoxifen, which cuts breast cancer risk.

On the flip side, Rahbar said, women with scans that are free of the finding might be able to have less-intensive screening in the future.

"We're moving toward more personalized medicine, in general," Rahbar said. "And that should include screening."

Right now, the American Cancer Society recommends that MRI be used along with standard mammograms when women have a roughly 20 percent or higher lifetime risk of breast cancer. The average U.S. woman has about a 12 percent risk.

The advice applies to women who carry inherited mutations in the BRCA 1 and 2 genes and face a very high risk of breast cancer. It also applies to women with a particularly strong family history of the cancer -- with two first-degree relatives affected, for example.

It's suspected that those families have as-yet undiscovered gene mutations that raise breast cancer risk, explained Robert Smith, vice president of cancer screening for the cancer society.

"This is a very interesting study," said Smith, who was not involved in the research.

He agreed it raises the possibility of using MRI to better define "high risk" for individual women -- and spot those who may not need such intensive screening.

"Since the [cancer society] issued its guidelines for high-risk women, there has been extraordinary progress in MRI technology," Smith said. "People are trying to find even better ways of using it -- and possibly better ways to screen women."

The new findings are based on medical records from 487 women who underwent MRI screening for breast cancer between 2006 and 2011. All fit the cancer society's definition of "high risk."

During the study period, 23 women were diagnosed with breast cancer -- an average of two years after their first MRI screening.

Rahbar's team then compared those patients with high-risk women who had not developed breast cancer. They found that the presence of background parenchymal enhancement on a woman's initial MRI seemed to predict a greater cancer risk. Women with at least "mild" background parenchymal enhancement were nine times more likely to develop the disease, versus those without the MRI finding.

Smith cautioned that the results are based on patient records. What's needed, he said, is a study that follows women over time -- one specifically designed to see whether background parenchymal enhancement can pinpoint women likely to develop breast cancer in the near future.

Why is the MRI finding linked to breast cancer? It's not clear, Rahbar said, but the white-appearing tissue may be a sign of an "environment that makes it easier for cancer cells to grow."

"We're very interested in figuring out the biology behind this," Rahbar said.

Another question he and Smith raised is this: Could background parenchymal enhancement help predict breast cancer among women at average risk of the disease?

Right now, MRI is not used to screen average-risk women. But as the technology evolves, and the price comes down, that could change, Rahbar said.

Copyright © 2015 HealthDay. All rights reserved.SOURCES: Habib Rahbar, M.D., assistant professor, breast imaging, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle; Robert Smith, Ph.D., vice president, cancer screening, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Ga.; May 12, 2015, Radiology, online

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Breastfeeding is associated with a 30% overall decreased risk of breast cancer recurrence among women who have previously had one subtype of the disease, according to a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Breastfeeding may make the breasts less susceptible to carcinogens, leading to slower growing tumors.

The team behind the new study, from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, CA, claims that this is the first study to examine the role of breastfeeding history in cancer recurrence.

The new study is part of ongoing research in breast cancer from the Kaiser Permanente team. Last year, the team discovered that patients with specific HER2+ breast cancer tumors have a low risk of cancer recurrence within 5 years of diagnosis. In 2013, they found that consuming high-fat dairy products following diagnosis of breast cancer increases likelihood of dying from the disease.

In the new study, the team found that breastfeeding appeared to improve outcomes of women diagnosed with the luminal A subtype of breast cancer.

Women with these cancers had a 30% decreased risk of breast cancer recurrence if they had a history of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding mothers were also found to be 28% less likely to die from luminal A breast cancer. The protection was found to be strongest for women who had a history of breastfeeding for 6 months or more.

However, no significant improved outcomes for women with other subtypes of breast cancer were associated with breastfeeding.

Why does breastfeeding have a protective effect for women with luminal A cancers?

Luminal A tumors are the most commonly diagnosed of breast cancers. These tumors generally have better outcomes than other tumor subtypes as they are less likely to metastasize and can be treated with hormonal therapy, such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors.

Marilyn L. Kwan, PhD, research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and lead author of the study, explains a potential mechanism behind the protective effects of breastfeeding for women with these cancers:

"Women who breastfeed are more likely to get the luminal A subtype of breast cancer, which is less aggressive, and breastfeeding may set up a molecular environment that makes the tumor more responsive to anti-estrogen therapy."

"Breastfeeding may increase the maturation of ductal cells in the breast," hypothesizes senior author Bette J. Caan, "making them less susceptible to carcinogens or facilitate the excretion of carcinogens, and lead to slower growing tumors."

In 2014, Medical News Today reported on another study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which observed that African-American women who had four or more births and who never breastfed had a 68% higher chance of developing breast cancer compared with women who had only one birth but who breastfed their child.

A 2013 study published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing also found that women who breastfed for over 6 months were less likely to develop early breast cancer than women who did not breastfeed.

In that study, by researchers at the University of Granada in Spain, women who did not breastfeed were found to get breast cancer 10 years earlier on average than breastfeeding mothers.

However, that study also found that smoking appeared to counter the protective effects of breastfeeding. Female smokers were diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age and had no significant benefit from breastfeeding.

The University of Granada team suggested that hormonal changes taking place during pregnancy and lactation could be responsible for the protective benefits of breastfeeding.

Written by David McNamee

It is well established that asthma is more common in women than men. Now, a new study of around 2,000 patients with acute asthma reveals women are more likely to be hospitalized when being treated for the condition in the emergency department.
Women treated in the emergency department for acute asthma are 60% more likely to be hospitalized than men, according to the study findings.

Lead study author Dr. Rose Chasm and colleagues publish their findings in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Asthma is estimated to affect almost 26 million Americans in the US and is responsible for almost 2 million visits to the emergency department (ED) every year.

There are known disparities in how asthma affects men and women. Asthma is more common among women, and women with the condition are also more likely to suffer an asthma attack than men.

For their study, Dr. Chasm and colleagues set out to determine whether there were differences in the risk of hospitalization between men and women who are treated in EDs for acute asthma.

Women with acute asthma 60% more likely to be hospitalized than men

From assessing the health charts of around 2,000 ED patients with the condition, the team found that women were 60% more likely to be hospitalized than men.

The team says this result remained even after accounting for potential confounders, including use of asthma control medications - such as inhaled corticosteroids - weight, smoking status and whether they had visited an allergist in the past year.

While the exact reasons for the significantly higher hospitalization risk among women treated for acute asthma are unclear, the researchers suggest a number of potential explanations.

It could be down to the influence of female sex hormones, for example. Studies have shown that fluctuation of estrogen in women can trigger airway inflammation, bringing on asthma symptoms.

Other potential explanations, the team says, are differences in bronchial hyper-responsiveness between men and women, altered perceptions of airflow obstruction and differences in health behaviors. They note that further studies are warranted to identify the exact reasons behind their finding, however.

Allergist visits, use of control medications may reduce asthma-related hospitalizations

The findings also revealed that many of the patients suffered from chronic asthma, with women faring slightly worse than men. Intubation - a plastic tube inserted into the windpipe to maintain an open airway - was performed on 13% of women and 12% of men at some point in their lives.

During the past 12 months, 16% of women and 13% of men had been hospitalized for their asthma, while 36% of women and 32% of men had been hospitalized for the condition at some point in their lifetime.

What is more, the researchers found that only 10% of women had seen an allergist in the past year and the rate was only slightly higher for men, which may have impacted their control of the condition.

"Many people aren't aware that allergists are asthma specialists, and are among the best-equipped experts to help keep asthma under control," says Dr. James Sublett, an allergist and president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

"Those who see an allergist and use controller medications find themselves in the ED much less often, and experience fewer hospitalizations related to their asthma."

Medical News Today recently reported on a study led by researchers from Cardiff University in the UK, who claim to have discovered a potential root cause of asthma - a finding the team says could lead to a cure for the condition.

Written by Honor Whiteman

An increasing share of highly educated women in the US are having children and bigger families, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.
The study reports that childlessness among highly educated women is down 30% from 1994.

Childlessness among women into their 40s with an MD or PhD has fallen significantly over the last two decades.

Presently, around 22% of women aged 40-44 with a master's degree (or higher) are childless - down 30% from 1994. In those women with an MD or PhD the decline is even more dramatic falling from 35% of women without children in 1994 to 20% today.

In addition to being more likely that highly educated women will have children, the research finds that they are also having bigger families.

Six in 10 women with a master's degree have had two or more children - up from 51% in 1994. The share with two children has risen 4 percentage points, while the share with three or more has risen 6 percentage points.

Gretchen Livingston, Senior Researcher of the report "Childlessness falls, family size grows among highly educated women" writes:

"This trend has likely been driven by demographic and societal changes. It coincides with women's growing presence in managerial and leadership positions and suggests that an increasing share of professional women are confronting the inevitable push and pull of work-family balance."

Previous research by the Pew Research Center has indicated that overall women devote fewer hours to paid work with each additional child they have. The report found that on average, a working-age woman with no children spends 27 hours per week in paid work, while a woman with three or more children spends 18 hours working.

Moreover, working mothers are suggested to be more than three times as likely as working fathers to reveal that being a working parent has made advancing their career more difficult.

Childlessness among all women ages 40-44 in the US is at its lowest point in a decade, which is likely fueled in part by the increase in motherhood among highly educated women. The average number of children that US women have in their lifetime has remained stable over the past 20 years, at about two children.

Currently around 35% of all women between 40-44 have two children, while just 12% have four or more. Simultaneously, one-child families have gained ground, with 18% of women having an only child at the end of their childbearing years, up from 10% in 1976. About 20% of women have three children, a number that has remained virtually unchanged.

Educational 'gaps' in childlessness and family size persist

Other key findings from the report focus on fertility trends, educational "gaps" in childlessness and family size and race.

Fertility trends among highly educated women show a clear pattern of decreased childlessness and bigger families. However, childlessness has decreased among women without a high school diploma and among women with a bachelor's degree, but family size has remained unchanged.

Although educational "gaps" in childlessness and family size have narrowed over 20 years, they still persist.

The higher the education a woman has, up to a bachelor's degree, the less likely she is to become a mother. Additionally, mothers with more education have fewer children than those with less education. Just 13% of moms lacking a high school diploma have one child, while 26% have four or more. Among mothers with a master's degree or higher, 23% have one child and just 8% have four or more.

Fertility patterns differ significantly by race and ethnicity. Among women aged 40-44 who are childless:

17% are white15% are black13% are Asian10% are Hispanic.

Hispanic and black mothers ages 40-44 are particularly likely to have larger families. About 20% of Hispanic mothers have four or more children, as do 18% of black mothers.

In comparison, just 11% of white mothers have four or more children, as do 10% of Asian mothers. Since 1988, there has been a dramatic decline in the share of mothers with four or more children among Hispanics, blacks and whites.

Medical News Today recently reported on a new study that finds that small differences in family income are associated with relatively large surface area differences in important brain regions among children in these families.

Written by Hannah Nichols

"I've been through 22 'no's that I'm not pregnant, but we connect through every loss."

 

Shutterstock

Women dealing with infertility can sometimes feel like they're suffering alone. There are some message boards and active support groups, but drowning out those safe spaces for honest conversation is a flood of Facebook and Instagram posts with a constantly rotating feed of pregnancy news and birth announcements.
What's more, many women feel as though they can't always talk to their partners about how distraught they are. To get an inside look at the more personal side of infertility, we asked a group of women to open up about their experiences with infertility and how it has affected their relationship with their partner.


Two years ago, 28-year-old Michelle was at work when she suddenly collapsed with severe abdominal pain. She was rushed to the ER, where they did a CAT scan that detected what they thought was a large ovarian cyst. Michelle had laparotomy surgery to remove the mass, but when she woke up, her husband, Jamie, had "a look of fear in his face."
Michelle had been diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. She and her husband were told that if they wanted children, they should hurry up and have them within the next six months. Six months of trying to conceive later, Michelle went to see a fertility specialist. She was then told she had an ovulatory disorder and ovarian dysfunction.
She did intrauterine insemination (IUI)—which involves injecting sperm inside the woman's uterus—four times; they all failed. She also found out she had uterine polyps, which can cause infertility. Eventually, her doctors recommended a shared-risk program that includes six cycles of IVF.
"I have a lot of guilt," says Michelle. "As a woman, you struggle with that insecurity."
Her husband remained optimistic, telling Michelle how proud he was of her and how strong she is. He let her scream and cry and have her "why me?" moments. "He will say, 'I know it's the medication talking. I know it's not you. I know it's the hormones.' He'll give me my space and take his space," says Michelle.
Still, despite her partner's positive attitude, Michelle has sometimes felt like she can't talk to him about certain aspects of infertility. So they started counseling, which has helped Michelle give voice to some of her fears.
"I was afraid to hear what my husband might say if we couldn’t get pregnant," says Michelle. "So I never wanted to ask Jamie on my own. Our counselor was also able to help us talk about what our next chapter might look like without children since, unfortunately, that could be our reality."
There have been times when the tension and anxiety has gotten the best of Michelle. She gained 20 pounds as a result of stress and hormones. And in moments of self-doubt, she's wondered whether her husband will leave her.
Thankfully though, the struggle has brought them closer in some ways. "Emotionally, we've been able to connect on a deeper level," says Michelle. "I've been through 22 'no's that I'm not pregnant, but we connect through every loss."
Now, Michelle has just begun her third round of IVF. She's been attending an infertility support group for about six months and has learned that not every partner is as supportive as hers. One night, after a meeting, "I came home and wrapped my arms around my husband and thanked him," she says.
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Over the course of 17 months, Tammy went through five rounds of Clomid (a drug that induces ovulation) and one IUI, but none of it worked. Comprehensive bloodwork showed that her DHEA-S (a precursor to testosterone) was high, so she was put on a steroid to help optimize her fertility. Although she was told that she probably couldn't get pregnant on her own, Tammy conceived within a month.
Soon after having their daughter, Tammy and her husband, Carter, started trying to get pregnant again. Nothing happened, so she went back on steroids. Tammy got pregnant within three months but had miscarriage due to triploidy, a rare chromosomal abnormality. That was last September.
To help prepare her body for another baby, Tammy overhauled her diet, pursued acupuncture and fertility massages, gave up caffeine, started eating organic, continued exercising, and practiced stress management, but she hit a breaking point after she miscarried. By that time, Carter felt like his wife's apparently futile efforts were taking away from more productive things.
"I was hurt that he felt I was 'wasting' my time," says Tammy. So she said, "I'm doing all of these things—can't you just give up your beer and your caffeine?" The very next day, Carter stopped drinking both.
One of the most frustrating parts of infertility for any couple is that it takes the spontaneity out of sex. But Tammy and Carter have found a way to make light of it: "We laugh about it," says Tammy. "We'll say, 'Remember, we're playing tennis tonight!' so our daughter doesn't know." And they've changed their expectations when it comes to what should happen in the bedroom. "Not every night is going to be this long, drawn-out, love-making session," she says. "Sometimes it's quick, and then we go to bed. Other nights, we really enjoy it. ... There are worse things than having to have a lot of sex."
RELATED: How Your Diet (and Your Partner's!) Can Impact Your Fertility


Sarah and her husband, Brad, knew that she had endometriosis when they began talking about starting a family right after getting married in 2009—but they were hopeful anyway. After six months of trying to get pregnant with no luck, they decided to see a specialist and found out that then 29-year-old Sarah would need IVF because she wasn't ovulating naturally. One round later, Sarah was pregnant. Their daughter, born early, was a miracle of sorts, and they decided to try for a second baby soon after her first birthday. That was three years ago. Since then, Sarah has had five miscarriages.
"After the third miscarriage, I had a difficult time getting back into regular life," says Sarah, adding that she couldn't stop reliving the experience. At the time, the couple was just about to close on a townhouse. "We were looking at the third bedroom saying, 'What do we do with this?'"
Sarah wanted to turn it into an office so it wouldn't weigh on her shoulders. Brad then told his distraught wife, "I don't want to do this anymore. Look at what it's doing to you." They took a pause to regroup and focus on their daughter.
The couple is currently considering surrogacy, and their struggle with infertility has contributed in a way to the strength of their relationship: "My husband is not the kind of man who wears his emotions on his sleeve," says Sarah. "Going through this experience with him has helped me to see an emotional side of him I might not have otherwise seen."


The only thing possibly more frustrating than a fertility-related health problem? Unexplained infertility. Lauren has been struggling with infertility for almost three years, but there's no apparent reason for it. After trying for a year, both she and husband were tested, but everything came back normal. She's given Clomid a try, but without any luck. "There's no clear path," says the 29-year-old. "The [doctors] don't know how to 'fix' it."
But Andy is an engineer. By nature, he wants to fix things, especially if it's his distraught wife. There have been times when Lauren gets her unwelcome period and then a friend calls to say she's pregnant. Andy will try to start problem solving, but that's not really what Lauren needs. "I want [him] to tell me [he's] sorry," she says. "Hug me. Be attentive to what I'm feeling right now. Don't try to fix it. We had a couple of big fights where I was telling him there was no solution and I didn't want him to try to come up with one."
In January, Lauren and Andy began weekly therapy. It's helped Lauren to start seeing her husband as a partner and less as just another player in the mix, and the therapist is able to translate her messages to her husband without things becoming too heated.
Next month, Lauren may try Clomid and IUI.
"Something about this waiting period has made us bond together in a completely different way," says Lauren. "I look at Andy now and realize it might just be him and I for the rest of our lives, and I've gotten to the spot where I'm okay with that. But we're not going to stop trying."
RELATED: The Weird Thing That Can Mess With a Man's Fertility


Together since 1991, Jennifer and her husband, Michael, began to build a family in 2001. The road was anything but easy.
Clomid didn't work. Then her husband was checked and found to have male factor infertility. Artificial insemination helped them conceive twice in 18 months, but both pregnancies failed at the 12-week mark. They did three more inseminations, but none of them took. Then they tried IVF, but the first cycle failed.
Through it all, Michael gave his wife constant hormone injections. He was her cheerleader and kept a positive attitude. But Jennifer didn't have any rose-colored glasses about the experience.
"I became more of a social hermit," she says. "I didn't want to go to another [friend's] baby shower." But her husband didn't let her stay home feeling sorry for herself. "He was incredibly emotionally supportive."
At a certain point, Jennifer and her husband decided it was no longer their job to get pregnant. It had become so rigorous and work-like that it was starting to wear them down. So they took the psychological burden off of themselves and left it in the hands of medical professionals whose job it was to help them conceive.
In their 24 years as a couple, they've dealt with the death of close relatives, unemployment, and Hurricane Sandy. But infertility was the greatest challenge because they weren't able to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
After six years of trying to conceive, IVF worked for Jennifer and Michael in 2007. Today, Jennifer is 43 years old and has three boys under the age of 10.

Human egg and sperm / Photo: Wellcome Images (cc)By Rachel Walden | October 28, 2014
Apple recently announced it was joining Facebook in covering costs for female employees who opt to freeze their eggs for non-medical reasons.
Both companies are providing up to $20,000; Apple as part of its fertility coverage, and Facebook as part of its surrogacy benefits.
Despite the financial generosity, this might not be a good deal for healthy employees of these companies — or for women in the workplace in general.
While some news outlets have addressed the high cost of egg freezing — at least $10,000 per ovarian stimulation cycle and $500 a year for storage — there’s more to be concerned about than the high cost or the low chances of success (according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, for a woman age 38, the chance of one frozen egg leading to a live birth is 2 to 12 percent).
We’ve pulled together a number of articles discussing the potential health risks and the complicated messaging to women employees. Please feel free to add what you’re reading in the comments.
Sharing Experiences
Kicking things off, Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, who works in the venture capital and tech sectors and has tried (and failed) to conceive using assisted reproductive technologies (ART), observes that egg freezing is “far from settled science”:
First, most people don’t realize the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the ASRM do not endorse the use of egg freezing to defer childbearing. The ASRM’s decision to lift the ‘experimental’ label from this still young procedure in 2012 only applied to medically indicated need, such as women with cancer.
Second, there are no guarantees for a successful or healthy pregnancy and delivery. In order to attempt pregnancy, egg freezing must be followed by in vitro fertilization (IVF) with another laboratory procedure, a technique known as ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection). For the latest flash freezing process trumpeted by enterprising fertility clinics and a host of profit-driven service providers, the most comprehensive data available reveals a 77% failure rate of frozen eggs resulting in a live birth in women aged 30, and a 91% failure rate in women aged 40.
But the dry statistics don’t take into account the very real emotional strain and trauma that often accompanies artificial reproduction and their frequent failures. Silicon Valley celebrates success. Even business failure can be accepted as an opportunity to learn. But failure takes on a much deeper personal meaning when it involves parenthood expectations.
She adds more in this essay at Wired:
Fast forward many months or even years into the future. You now attempt to get pregnant with your frozen eggs. Hopefully you have sufficient savings, or are still employed by Facebook or Apple, because you must now undergo at least one, but probably multiple rounds of invasive and life-altering in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures.
You must again inject yourself with hormones, this time to prepare your uterus to welcome a potential embryo. You must open your entire emotional, social and professional schedule to daily blood tests, ultra sounds, vaginal probes and other assorted procedures that experienced women have referred to as “humiliating.” I can attest to this.
If your uterus responds to the hormones, the frozen eggs must then be successfully thawed — no easy task given low thaw survival rates. An egg’s shell hardens when frozen in liquid nitrogen so to attempt in vitro fertilization sperm must be injected directly into the egg with a needle to fertilize the egg through a technique known as ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection).
Again, if all goes well and at least one viable embryo is created in the laboratory, it is then transferred into your uterus. As with naturally occurring conception, the final outcome is in Mother Nature’s hands — and she is clearly not incentive driven. The vast majority of procedures fail.
Health Risks: Known and Unknown
Ronald F. Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist, notes that physicians have a duty to “accurately inform our patients about the potential risks and benefits of all care we provide.” His 10 points about elective egg freezing cover success rates and other statistics along with health concerns:
For some women, egg retrieval can commonly cause mild internal bleeding and the potential for scar tissue formation around the ovaries and fallopian tubes. Egg donors are routinely told this could interfere with future natural conception by preventing an otherwise normal egg from entering the fallopian tube after ovulation.
For IVF patients who have already committed to bypassing their tubes via IVF, the concern about tubal scarring is not as high. But for women looking to electively freeze their eggs, the process could worsen their future chances of conceiving naturally.
Additional health risks are outlined by Françoise Baylis, Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University. In “Seven Reasons not to Freeze Your Eggs,” she explains the potential complications related to ovarian stimulation, which takes place prior to egg retrieval:
The two weeks of daily injections are known to be painful and uncomfortable. There can be cramping, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. More serious possible side effects include rapid weight gain and damage to organs close to the ovaries. More serious still is the small risk of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome which can require hospitalization and rarely has resulted in death. As well, there is a small chance of infertility (1%) and there are reports suggesting a link between ovarian stimulation and certain cancers.
Participating in The New York Times Room for Debate, OBOS board member Miriam Zoll, author of “Cracked Open: Liberty, Fertility and the Pursuit of High-Tech Babies,” notes that there is still much we don’t know about the procedure.
“Responsible doctors should not be recommending egg freezing to healthy young women who have no medically indicated need,” she writes, adding:
The dearth of evidence-based safety and efficacy data, combined with low numbers of live births resulting from egg freezing, do not justify broadening the application of the procedure to the general public at this time.
There is no long-term data tracking the health risks of women who inject hormones and undergo egg retrieval, and no one knows how much of the chemicals used in the freezing process are absorbed by eggs, and whether they are toxic to cell development.
Who Benefits the Most?
Writing at PBS’s To the Contrary, Zoll also explains that pressure to preserve fertility (for which egg freezing is not recommended) creates a lucrative system for the ART industry.
With a perpetual media and marketing blitz loaded with slogans like “extend your fertility,” “tackle conception later” and “take control of the calendar,” healthy young women who can afford it might assume they are being negligent if they don’t agree to “insure” their chances to become a mother in the future.
This fear is exactly what anthropologist Tiffany Romain has written about in the book The Anthropology of Ignorance. Like IVF, she says the egg freezing business­­ markets [offer] hope, and that hope often turns into a fantasy of “empowerment.”
Melissa McEwen also touches on the problematic idea of egg freezing being sold as something “empowering” for women employees. Her post “Egg Freezing: A Sign Your Workplace Is A Dystopian HellHole” concludes:
This is the kind of pretend woman empowerment that makes me cringe. But if there is anything I’ve learned working in tech for almost a decade, it’s that this is par for the course. That corporate feminism like “Lean In” (by Facebook’s COO) isn’t about making women’s lives better, it’s about increasing our productivity for the good of the company. And about making people in power feel good about themselves without actually threatening the status quo.
Encouraging women to freeze eggs sends a clear message that the corporate preference is for women to avoid childbearing — especially when the companies are overwhelming male-dominated like Facebook and Apple are (where about 70 percent of their total staff is male). Marcy Darnovsky, executive director at the Center for Genetics and Society, explains:
“When you’re in a situation of your employer offering you a choice,” she says, “you really have to be careful that you’re distinguishing between something that’s an expanded option and something that’s actually subtle or even explicit pressure to do what your employer wants you to do.”
Controlling Reproduction in the Workplace
“Historically, the relationship between technology and women’s work has been complicated,” note the authors of “Egg-freezing a better deal for companies than for women,” posted at CNN.
All three bring a useful perspective and context to the discussion — Rene Almeling is a sociologist at Yale and author of “Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm”; Joanna Radin is a historian at Yale; and Sarah S. Richardson is a historian at Harvard and author of “Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome.” They write:
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when wage labor was being regularized, workers were compelled (sometimes via force and sometimes via incentives) to show up on time and to order their lives along the expectations of their employers. The tech industry has reconfigured the places and even the hours that people work, but it still sets a very demanding pace.
What’s more, women now constitute almost half of all workers. And rather than making fundamental changes to the structure of work in our society to accommodate women’s reproductive years, technological optimists reach for an engineering solution. Have a conflict between women’s biological clock and work productivity? Freeze the eggs. [...]
Freezing eggs appears to make reproduction controllable, but one cannot freeze time. Even if cells can be hoarded and stored, time cannot. Time and life and bodies march on; we age, even if our reproductive materials are transformed into frozen assets.
Focusing on gender inequality in the workplace, Sarah Taylor, an associate at a UK law firm, writes:
Unless organisations become more accommodating, the option to freeze eggs is simply postponing the challenges faced by many working mothers, as many of the women who freeze eggs will go on to have children eventually.
Worse still, older mothers are more likely to suffer from medical complications during pregnancy and labour, and will possibly hold more senior positions with even greater demands on their time. Postponing motherhood to later in life may not, therefore, make juggling the demands of career and motherhood any easier.
The other message that offering egg freezing promotes is that employers want women to focus on their careers during their natural child bearing years, but are happy for women in their forties and older to take time out to start a family, suggesting that the contribution of women over 40 is not as valuable.
Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software, has an alternative suggestion for how Apple and Facebook employees could use that $20,000:
Imagine that instead they paid women $20,000 to have a full-time baby nurse for four to five months. Women could then continue their leadership track, have a baby, and feel completely supported by their organization. Or these companies could use that money and build real nurseries in their offices and staff them with licensed day-care workers, creating a great place for women mid-career to feel supported.
The not-so-subliminal message that a company sends a woman when egg freezing is a benefit, and the fact these companies don’t see that message, is an example of how far we have not come.
For more on workplace issues, read Samantha Allen at The Daily Beast and Claire Cain Miller’s reporting in The New York Times.
Plus, humor: The Reductress was ahead of the times in 2013 when it reported that Mattel was introducing Barbie’s Egg-Freezing Kit.