Here’s an overview piece on current fertility research around later motherhood.

ap_120330030723-2Among the methods discussed, lab-grown eggs from stem cells (“Growing eggs in the lab like this would yield a great many eggs unaffected by age for older women trying to conceive through IVF. It also would mean women could skip the hormone stimulation harvesting eggs normally requires, though a minor, outpatient surgery to take tissue from the ovary would be needed.”); egg freezing; ovarian tissue freezing; mitochondrial transplants; genetic screening.

As the reporter notes, these technologies are very expensive, and so only available to the well to do except in states with mandated coverage.  They are also experimental, with varying levels of risk and unknown down-the-line effects on kids and parents.

The stem cell route in particular might take us to a future where age is not a factor in whether or not a woman gets pregnant.  But even more effective for shaping happy families for the group as a whole would be giving people a supportive social environment for combining families and work, where good childcare wasn’t so expensive that you had to wait to be able to afford it, and where employers didn’t see kids as a drag on their employees commitment to their work.  Having the school-day mimic the work-day would be a major means for realizing such a world, while also expanding kids’ learning, if done well and responsibly.  Progress is happening on these fronts as well (largely in municipalities, like NYC, DC, Miami, San Antonio, San Francisco) — & effort to improve things in Houston is underway too.  Keep it going!

Share

One thought on “New Era in Childbirth? Childcare Still Part of the Story.

  • June 3, 2016 at 7:35 am
    Permalink

    There are a lot of couples who are after many fertility treatment just to have their own baby. And some or most of them have a succesful treatment but after that they are not ready or still don’t have the idea how parenting works. And so every parents needs to know how to take care of their baby/child.

Leave a Reply