Toxic Blood and Depleted Ovaries Explain Fertility Problems
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Two studies advance fertility knowledge in the US and UK.
Two new fertility studies from both sides of the Atlantic have shed new light on why women have difficulty conceiving.
In the US a study by UC Berkeley showed that higher levels of commonly found flame-retardant chemicals in the blood decreased the chance of women getting pregnant. Meanwhile in the UK, joint research from Edinburgh University and the University of St Andrews found that women only have 12 per cent of their eggs left by the age of 30, explaining why older women struggle to conceive.
The American study measured the levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, commonly referred to as PBDEs, in women’s bloodstreams. High levels of PBDEs reduced the chance of pregnancy, with a female being 30 to 50 per cent less likely to conceive than a women with low PBDE levels.
The chemicals appear in a number of household products including wire insulation, foam padding in sofas and curtain materials. Although the use of certain PBDEs has been banned in the US and other flame retardant chemicals are used as alternatives, many products will not be phased out of use until 2013.
In the UK, researchers observed the decline of women’s potential eggs cells to explain why older women have difficulty falling pregnant. The study showed that the average woman is born with 300,000 potential egg cells – her “ovarian reserve”.
However, by the age of 30, the ovarian reserve had declined by 88 per cent to just 36,000 potential eggs. At the age of 40 the reserve was as low as 9,000. The body naturally selects the best eggs from the reserve, reducing the quality as the female gets older.
Potential mothers over the age of 40 have a much weaker pool of eggs from which to choose from, increasing the risk of miscarriages and an unhealthy baby. Both pieces of research could lead to a new screening process which would regularly test women’s fertility in a similar way to current cervical cancer screens are implemented now.
Men are like government bonds – they take way too long to mature. So when you tell them you are pregnant, they aren’t listening. It goes in one ear and out the other. So if you are a woman trying to make it in a man’s world, you have to think like they do.
I don’t need to hear that I only have about a thousand eggs left. Why do they tell you that you have millions of eggs during Sex Ed. class, and now I hear I was only born with about 300,000? Are they saying that hundreds of eggs are released each menses?
They came to this conclusion after studying 325 women? Hello? Isn’t that a fairly small research group? Where were they from?
Why do they present these studies in programs? Just to depress 40-year-old single women? Should we all just curl up and die, now that our ovaries are just dried up little stones?
Presenting this study on news programs is misogyny in a pure form.
325 women. That’s hardly a study.
There might be hundreds of eggs recruited each menses, but only one actually matures completely and is ovulated. The rest die.