Tests That Use DNA From Mother’s Blood to Determine Sex of Fetus Often Effective
As a noninvasive method of determining the sex of a fetus, tests using cell-free fetal DNA obtained from the mother’s blood after 7 weeks gestation performed well, while urine-based tests appear to be unreliable, according to a review and analysis of previous studies, reported in the August 10 issue of JAMA.
Noninvasive prenatal determination of fetal sex could provide an important alternative to invasive cytogenetic determination, which is currently the gold standard for determining sex and single-gene disorders. Amniocentesis has small but measurable rates of procedure-related pregnancy loss; and sonography can be performed as early as 11 weeks’ gestation to determine fetal sex, although not reliably, according to background information in the article. “The availability of a reliable noninvasive alternative to determine fetal sex would reduce unintended fetal losses and would presumably be welcomed by pregnant women carrying fetuses at risk for disorders,” the authors write.
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Today’s Economics of Fertility Treatment
Atlanta, GA – Since the beginning of the current economic downturn, everyone has been wondering how new financial considerations and constraints are affecting the decisions people make about a variety of reproductive medicine procedures. While there have been no national data collections, researchers have been evaluating their own clinics’ data and local data to arrive at some answers.
Many have speculated that more women would turn to compensated egg donation to try to supplement falling incomes and net worth in the downturn. To either confirm or disprove the reality of this phenomenon, researchers at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine undertook a comparison of egg donor applicant characteristics from the 2002-2004 time period and 2008. Fifty-four interview records from 2002-2004 and 46 records from 2008 from a single private oocyte donation program were reviewed and compared. During both periods, the same person conducted the interviews and the same questionnaire was used. No significant difference was found in the applicants’ demographic characteristics. The age of prospective donors, their history of previous donation cycles, their education level, marital status, distribution of religions and religiosity remained consistent from the earlier period to the later. The largest difference to emerge was in the donors’ plans for use of their compensation. In 2002-2004, 28% planned to use the money to pay for schooling. This increased to 57% for 2008. Differences in other planned uses for the money were smaller: from 2002-2004 to 2008, the number of women planning to use their compensation to pay debt decreased from 32% to 21% and the number planning to save the money decreased from 20% to 11%.
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