IVF blunders

It's every IVF patient's worst nightmare - to discover that something has happened to the precious eggs,sperm or embryos that you have left at the fertility clinic. The news that a couple from Wales had lost all their donated eggs after an accident at the clinic is heartbreaking - the highs and lows of infertility are hard enough to cope with and it is hard to imagine how utterly devastating this news must have been.

The despair of the couple must also have been felt by the member of staff responsible - can you imagine how awful it would be to know that you might have ruined a couple's only chance to have a baby? It was clearly a mistake, and human error is something we can't ever eliminate entirely, What's really worrying about this story though is that it happened at the same clinic where we recently learnt that stored sperm was mistakenly destroyed. It may be an unfortunate coincidence, but fertility patients will be rightly anxious about entrusting their precious gametes to a clinic which seems to have a less than perfect record on this front. One can only hope that all procedures at the clinic have been reviewed to minimise the chances of anything like these two incidents happening again.

New hope for male infertility

You've probably heard by now about the human sperm created in the laboratory along with dire warnings about men becoming redundant in the future.

The sperm were made using embryonic stem cells by a team from Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute, and the researchers believe the development will offer hope to many couples with fertility problems. You can read all about the research at www.nesci.ac.uk

However, some other experts in the field have expressed doubts as to whether what has been produced are actually real sperm, or something similar with many of the same characteristics - clearly a case of watch this space!

Fat men no less fertile

We've always known fertility is discriminatory when it comes to age, and whilst men can carry on fathering children when they're collecting their pensions, most women stop being fertile in their early forties. We've tended to assume that other factors, like being overweight, affect both sexes in the same way, but new research from the States suggests this may not be the case.

Researchers in New York looked at sperm samples from 292 men who had an average body mass index of 28, which is in the definitely overweight category. They found that weight didn't make any difference when it came to sperm quantity or quality. Although being overweight was linked to lower testosterone levels, this only seemed to have an effect when men were enormous rather than just on the big side. The results of the research are being presented at the annual conference of the US Endocrine Society this week.

Heartening news for any larger men out there - but perhaps not so cheery for larger women. However, doctors warn that men shouldn't use this as an excuse not to lose weight if they need to, as being overweight may have other health implications.

New research into causes of male infertility

Researchers in the United States have found evidence that male infertility may have genetic causes which are set from before a man is born.

The team at the University of Southern California looked at sperm DNA from men at fertility clinics, and they found differences between those with fertility problems and those with normal sperm counts. Their findings suggest that the way DNA is processed may be a cause.

The research is quite complicated if you aren't science-minded, but for more details of the study, you can see the press release from the University here