You Can Get Pregnant in Your 40's: STDs

Pelvic inflammatory disease is a painful condition affecting women. It occurs when the internal reproductive organs - the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries - become infected, often by a sexually-transmitted disease.

On top of short-term discomfort, the long-term effects can be chronic pain and even infertility. Here's what you need to know to try to avoid it...

Read more...

Life Begins... - Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
Pregnancy Stories by Age - Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
Stories of Pregnancy over 44 years old - sharing stories I find online, for inspiration!

Recent Keyword Searches: is it safe for woman over the age of 42 to have children, change of life pregnancy, getting pregnant in your forties, how much cost to get pregnant, dhea supplementation to improve reproductive success

Photo by hadrianvii

CHLAMYDIA is spreading among young people at an alarming rate.

For thousands of young people up and down the country chlamydia is the very last thing on their minds. And, considering the sexually transmitted infection often presents no symptoms, it’s little surprise.

Known as “the silent epidemic”, 70 per cent of women and 50pc of men who have the infection experience no warning signals.

Read more: http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/lifestyle-news/newstest/2009/09/13/avoid-danger-of-infertility-79310-24674423/

Life Begins... - Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
Pregnancy Stories by Age - Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
Stories of Pregnancy over 44 years old - sharing stories I find online, for inspiration!

Recent Keyword Searches: having kids after 40, when can a woman conceive, upto what age a woman can concive, age limit to become pregnant, how old can a woman get pregnant

Photo by lusi

Get tested for infections if you experience infertility

Dr. Wojo: During nearly every emergency department shift, I deal with genitourinary problems and pregnancy complications. Usually, common infections are found. But sometimes, less common infections -- such as bacterial mycoplasma and ureaplasma infections -- are diagnosed.

What are these infections? Mycoplasmas are some of the smallest living organisms that, unlike most bacteria, do not have cell walls; instead, they live within other live cells. A close relative is ureaplasma. Both of these organisms can be found in up to 70 percent of sexually active adults. But when there is significant overgrowth, problems can occur, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, urethritis and pregnancy loss.

Read more: http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20090420/WDH04/904200318

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

5,000 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: pcod more causes_risk_factors, can i get pregnant at 48, does your can you get pregnant at 40, can a forty five year old woman conceive?, conception age 43

Photo by matchstick

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Canadian high school students may lack important knowledge about risk factors for infertility, survey findings suggest. For example, most students were unaware that some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility.

"About 80 percent of students said they were familiar with the term infertility," Susan Quach, of Sunnybrook and Women's College Hospital Fertility Center in Toronto, told Reuters Health. But when asked more specific infertility-related questions, fewer students answered correctly, indicating a lack of knowledge that may increase their risk of infertility later in life, Quash said.

For example, more than 94 percent of the students did not know that sexually transmitted infections, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea can lead to infertility, Quash and co-investigator Dr. Clifford Librach at the University of Toronto report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

The researchers asked 772 ethnically diverse high school students to complete a written questionnaire designed to determine their knowledge of and attitudes about infertility. The students were 17.5 years old, on average, and 49 percent were female.

A total of 608 students completed the questionnaire and, as noted, the vast majority did not know that chlamydia and gonorrhea can lead to infertility. About 25 percent thought fertility problems only occurred among women 40 years or older.

The researchers found that students from schools with low socioeconomic status more frequently gave incorrect answers and were significantly less aware of associations between sexually transmitted diseases and infertility.

Overall, about 73 percent of female and 67 percent of male respondents said protecting their fertility was important to them. Most also reported that their fertility was important to them. Fifty-five percent of the students said they were open to screening for sexually transmitted diseases as a means of protecting their fertility.

These findings highlight the importance of educating young people about modifiable risk factors for infertility, such as body fat, smoking, caffeine consumption, excessive exercise, drug use, and sexually transmitted infections, Quash and Librach note.

To assist the development of targeted and appropriate infertility prevention education, the investigators suggest that further infertility knowledge assessments should be conducted among students in rural or less ethnically diverse schools.

SOURCE: Fertility and Sterility, December 2008.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4BS58L20081229?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

4,800 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: how to get pregnant at 40 years old, can a women get pregnant at 43, can i get pregnant with fybroids, am i too old to get pregnant, percentage of women over 45 to become pregnant

The technical definition of infertility is the inability to get pregnant after trying for at least one year without using birth control. Approximately 15 per cent of couples are infertile and about one-third of those cases are caused by the man's inability to impregnate his spouse while another one-third is a combination of male and female inability. In fact, 50 per cent of infertility problems could be attributed to the male factor.

Infertility can result from a condition that is present at birth (congenital) or can develop later (acquired).

Fertilisation normally takes place within the female's uterine tubes after ovulation has occurred. During the menstrual mid-cycle, the cervical mucus changes to become more abundant, thinner and more watery. These changes serve to facilitate entry of the sperm into the uterus and to protect the sperm from the highly acidic vaginal secretions. Physiologic changes in the spermatozoa occur within the female reproductive tract in order for fertilisation of the egg to occur.

Common causes

• According to Familydoctor.org, the most common cause of the male infertility is a varicocele. This occurs when the veins in the scrotum become enlarged on one or both sides. This causes the inside of the scrotum to heat up and may affect sperm production.

• The second major cause of infertility in men is from blockages in the male reproductive tract. This is particularly true for men with zero sperm count, a condition called 'azoospermia'. Men with zero sperm count make no sperm at all, or they may make sperm but cannot get it out. The most exciting new development in the field of male infertility is the ability to treat men with severe sperm production problems called non-obstructive azoospermia. Even though these men may have no sperm in their semen, sperm can be found between the cells of the testicles in almost half of these cases.

• Sexually transmitted diseases

• Blockage can also be caused by a urinary tract infection or by the sexually transmitted diseases chlamydia and gonorrhoea. Bacteria can infect the tiny duct called the 'epididymis', which is essentially a swimming school for sperm before they are able to swim to fertilise an egg.

• Infection of the epididymis can cause scarring and blockage, inhibiting the sperm from leaving the duct to fertilise an egg. With the use of microscopes employing 30-power magnification, blockage repair success rates are extremely high. Blockage may also be caused by vasectomy when a man decides he wants no more children. However, there are new techniques to reverse vasectomies in light of increasing divorce rates.

Dr. Marc Goldstein of the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine reports that approximately one per cent of all infertile men are born with the congenital absence of the vas deferens, the 'equivalent' of a vasectomy. While there are no artificial tubes strong enough to replace the vas deferens, infertile men in this category are able to get help from an operating microscope to retrieve sperm from the tiny ducts of the epididymis, freeze them and use them later for in vitro fertilisation with the injection of the single sperm directly into an egg.

• Genetics

Artificial techniques of reproduction have advanced to the point where a single sperm can be physically injected into an egg, even for the most severe male factor infertility, giving them the potential to conceive their own genetic child.

Other causes for male infertility include the following:

• Medications (e.g., to treat high blood pressure, arthritis)

• Retrograde ejaculation - a condition in which semen flows backwards into the bladder during ejaculation. Diminished or 'dry' ejaculation and cloudy urine after ejaculation may be signs of this condition.

• Chemotherapy

• Defect or obstruction in the reproductive system (e.g., cryptorchidism, anorchism)

• Disease (e.g., cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, sexually transmitted disease )

• Hormone dysfunction caused by disorder in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis

• Infection (e.g., prostatitis, epididymitis, orchitis)

• Injury causing trauma in the testicular region.

• Metabolic disorders such as hemochromatosis (affects how the body uses and stores iron)

• Systemic disease (e.g., high fever, infection, kidney disease)

• Testicular cancer

• Congenital causes as in Klinefelter syndrome and Hypogonadism

With advances in scientific discovery, male infertility should be easy to combat in the years to come, reducing the stress on couples and the heavy burden that men bear when they face difficulty in fathering a child.

Full Article: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080113/out/out13.html

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

4,300 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: desperate to get pregnant 42 year old, how often do people on ivf get pregnant naturally?, can you get pregnant at 45, i am over 40 years and want to get pregnant naturally, why are your eggs too old after 40, chances of falling pregnant at 44, how to conceive in your 40's, want to be pregnant at 44 years old, what is the last age to get pregnant, how likely is it to get pregnant after 50

Chlamydia, the sexually transmitted infection (STI) carried by one in ten sexually-active young British adults can make men infertile by damaging the quality of their sperm, new research has shown.

While the condition, which usually passes undetected, has long been known to threaten female fertility, scientists from Spain and Mexico have now established that it presents similar risks for men.

Men with chlamydia have three times the normal number of sperm with genetic damage that can impair their ability to father children, the study found.

Antibiotic treatment can reverse the effect, and preliminary results indicate that it may dramatically enhance pregnancy rates when couples are trying for a baby. But the discovery suggests that the prevalence of the disease may be contributing to infertility across an entire generation of young adults.

Britain’s national screening programme has found that 10.2 per cent of both men and women aged 18 to 25 carry the bacteria, and studies have found infection rates as high as 5 per cent among older groups with a lower risk.

The findings indicate that untreated chlamydia infections should not just concern women, who have long been warned that the condition can make them infertile, but has direct consequences for men.

This will create fresh pressure for chlamydia screening to be more effectively targeted at young men, who rarely seek testing and treatment unless they develop symptoms, which are often absent or quickly fade.

Doctors have already warned that the rise in the number of chlamydia cases in Britain may rob thousands of young women of the chance to have children. Figures from the Health Protection Agency reveal that cases of chlamydia have increased by more than 200 per cent in England in the past decade.

Chlamydia is easily treated with antibiotics, typically a week’s course of doxycycline or a single dose of azithromycin, but testing is necessary first.

Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and secretary of the British Fertility Society, said that the emerging understanding of how chlamydia affects male fertility should change the way that society approaches the condition.

“We might think of chlamydia as a disease that damages female fertility, but we need to think again,” he said. “It does damage female fertility, but it appears to damage male fertility, too.

“Previously, it was thought that the most worrying thing about chlamydia infections in men was as a conduit for the infection of women. The thing that drives most men to sexual health clinics is symptoms, and chlamydia is often symptom-free. Chlamydia is getting out of control. We have got to encourage men as well as women to go for screening.”

In the study, a team led by José Luis Fernández, of the Juan Cana-lejo University Hospital in La Coruña, examined sperm samples taken from 193 men seeking fertility treatment with their partners in Monterey, Mexico.

Of these, 143 were infected with both chlamydia and mycoplasma, another common sexually transmitted bacterium, while 50 were uninfected and served as healthy controls.

Dr Fernández, who will present his findings today at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Washington, then examined the men’s sperm for a form of genetic damage called DNA fragmentation. This can cause sperm to die, as well as hindering their ability to fertilise eggs and embryonic development.

An average of 35 per cent of the infected men’s sperm was damaged, a proportion 3.2 times higher than in the healthy controls.

“We found there was a three-fold increase in the fragmentation of DNA in sperm cells compared with controls, and this could have a potential role in subfertility,” Dr Fernández said.

In the infected group, both partners were treated with antibiotics. During the early stages of treatment, just 12.5 per cent of the couples conceived but, when therapy was complete, 85.7 per cent had achieved a pregnancy.

Successful treatment of the male partners is more likely to have been responsible for this effect.

Chlamydia causes female infertility as a result of chronic infection, which causes damage to the Fallopian tubes, and once this has occurred it is not usually reversed by treatment.

Men, however, produce new sperm so quickly and in such abundance that removing the infection will rapidly improve sperm quality. After treatment, the infected men produced many fewer genetically damaged sperm.

“After four months of treatment, there was a significant decrease in DNA damage that could improve pregnancy rates in these couples,” Dr Fernández said. “It seems related to an improved pregnancy rate. It’s a very dramatic difference, but this is a small number of couples, so the results are only preliminary.”

The findings suggest that infertility patients of both sexes should be routinely screened for chlamydia, as already happens in most British clinics.

Dr Pacey said: “I would advise couples trying for a baby to be screened for chlamydia. The difficulty is that a positive diagnosis carries implications of infidelity, but of course as it can be asymptomatic the infection could have been there for many years.”

Chlamydia’s effects on female infertility are well-established. If left untreated, up to 40 per cent of women will develop pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause tubal scarring that leads to infertility and an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy.

In men, chlamydia can lead to swelling of the testicles or epididymis, and either can cause sterility if not treated. However, both conditions are generally treated before they cause long-term damage as they are painful.

Most common sexually transmitted infection

— Chlamydia is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis

— It is the most common sexually transmitted infection in Britain, with 109,958 confirmed diagnoses in 2005, and the incidence is increasing

— The true figure is thought to be much higher as the condition often has no symptoms, and can pass undetected for years

— Symptoms can include discharge from the vagina or penis or pain on urination, but it often has no symptoms at all

— A study of male Army recruits found that one in ten had chlamydia, but 88 per cent of these had had no symptoms

— Left untreated, it will cause pelvic inflammatory disease in up to 40 per cent of women. This can cause scarring to the Fallopian tubes, leading to infertility or a raised risk of ectopic pregnancy

— In men, it can cause epididymitis or orchitis - swelling of the epididymis at the top of the testicle, or of the testicle itself. This is painful, and can cause scarring and infertility if untreated

— Chlamydia can be detected by a simple urine test; swabs are no longer necessary. Postal kits are available from Boots at £25, and a national free screening programme exists for under-25s

Source: Health Protection Agency, Times database
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2658732.ece