Infertility Around the Globe


Book Description

These essays examine the global impact of infertility as a major reproductive health issue, one that has profoundly affected the lives of countless women and men. The contributors address a range of topics including how the deeply gendered nature of infertility sets the blame on women's shoulders.




Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 2)


Book Description

The evaluation of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) by the Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (DCP3) focuses on maternal conditions, childhood illness, and malnutrition. Specifically, the chapters address acute illness and undernutrition in children, principally under age 5. It also covers maternal mortality, morbidity, stillbirth, and influences to pregnancy and pre-pregnancy. Volume 3 focuses on developments since the publication of DCP2 and will also include the transition to older childhood, in particular, the overlap and commonality with the child development volume. The DCP3 evaluation of these conditions produced three key findings: 1. There is significant difficulty in measuring the burden of key conditions such as unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, nonsexually transmitted infections, infertility, and violence against women. 2. Investments in the continuum of care can have significant returns for improved and equitable access, health, poverty, and health systems. 3. There is a large difference in how RMNCH conditions affect different income groups; investments in RMNCH can lessen the disparity in terms of both health and financial risk.







Obstetric Medicine


Book Description

Obstetric Medicine, the first title in a new Oxford Specialist Handbooks series covering Obstetrics and Gynaecology, contains relevant, accessible, and focused information to help both general physicians to manage medical conditions during pregnancy, and the specialist obstetrician manage general medicine in the pregnant patient. Pregnant women regularly present with medical problems to many different medical specialties, and as their physiology is changed by the pregnancy, so too is the way in which many chronic illnesses behave. There are also differences in which drugs or investigations may be appropriate during pregnancy. This new specialist handbook provides a comprehensive overview of medical conditions in the pregnant patient, and covers the syllabus for both the RCOG Advanced Training Skills Module (ATSM) and the maternal medicine for obstetric trainees. Filled with links to national and international guidelines, expert advice, and evidence-based management strategies for a range of acute and chronic conditions that can occur in the pregnant woman, this handbook is an essential new addition to the literature for all physicians who work with pregnant patients in their practice.




Impacts of Medications on Male Fertility


Book Description

The over-arching goal of this volume is to help infertility practitioners evaluate and manage their patients with poor semen quality. The authors review the existing literature on the effects of medications on male fertility, and provide detailed information about what is known, giving the number of individuals and population characteristics for studies of medication effects on male fertility. Medications are designed to treat illness and reduce symptoms, but all have undesirable adverse effects such as headache or stomach upset. Some adverse reactions can even be life-threatening, so it is no surprise that some drugs have negative effects on male reproduction. Medical practitioners rarely consider a man’s reproductive plans when prescribing medications. Men are routinely treated with drugs that can impair or abolish fertility. Although practitioners in the field of reproductive medicine generally realize that certain drugs impact negatively on reproductive health, there are limited resources providing evidence-based knowledge useful in counseling patients. Tables throughout this volume summarize the information for each drug, providing a handy reference for clinical use.




Doctorinternet


Book Description

Doctor Internet is an essential reference for any person who wants to be more actively involved in his or her own medical care. Millions of people (both patients and professionals) are beginning to use the Internet for researching health and medicine.







Infertility in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome


Book Description

This book presents up-to-date knowledge on infertility in the context of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and provides clear evidence-based guidance on its treatment. The book opens by discussing anovulation, oocyte quality, and the endometrium in women with PCOS, infertility and subfertility cofactors, and the impact of PCOS phenotypes on fertility. All aspects of management are then thoroughly addressed. The available medical treatments for PCOS-related infertility – including antiestrogens, aromatase inhibitors, insulin-sensitizing drugs, and gonadotropins – are reviewed, and other potential therapeutic approaches, such as acupuncture and laparoscopic ovarian drilling, are assessed. Careful attention is also devoted to the role of lifestyle interventions. The use of controlled ovarian stimulation in infertile PCOS patients undergoing intrauterine insemination or in vitro fertilization is examined in detail, as are the benefits of in vitro maturation of oocytes. This book will be of value to all who are involved in the care of women with PCOS and related infertility issues.




Medical Bondage


Book Description

The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for medical experimentation. In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white “ladies.” Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.




Your Fertile Years


Book Description

How well do you really know your body? How easy do you think it will be for you to get pregnant - or NOT to get pregnant? You've probably never really been educated about your reproductive years - perhaps you learnt everything you know from friends, or from the media, or online. You might be ready for a baby now; or, like so many other women, you might want to delay the birth of your first child while you establish your career. Perhaps you're thinking about freezing your eggs. Professor Joyce Harper is an internationally recognized expert on female fertility and fertility education, and in 12 chapters she covers the full scope of your reproductive years, from your first period to menopausal symptoms. Her straightforward, scientifically based advice will give you all the information you need to make informed decisions about your reproductive choices. Only when you really understand your menstrual cycle works can you optimise your lifestyle to get pregnant successfully - while being properly aware of how and when your fertility will decline. Your Fertile Years answers all your questions about things like egg freezing and IVF, and debunks not only the myths surrounding fertility treatment, but also the misinformation and scare stories that surround conception and pregnancy, including the bottom line on supplements, diet and holistic therapies. A shining beacon in the murky fertility landscape, this book will accompany you through your fertile years, giving you the guidance you need to make decisions that work for you, your family, your career and your body.