Effects of assisted reproductive technologies on human sex ratio at birth

Aim was to determine whether there is any difference in the sex ratio, body length, and body weight of 2,456 deliveries after transfer of 9,624 embryos derived using in vitro culture under static and mechanical microvibration conditions. Pronuclear embryos from 4435 patients were cultured in vitro under two different conditions: without (n=4821) and with mechanical agitation (n=4803). Sex ratio, body length, and weight of 2,456 live-birth deliveries after transfer of 9,624 embryos were noted. The proportion of males at birth was significantly associated with mode of in vitro culture of embryos only among women aged 40 years and older. The rate “body length” was significantly associated with mode of in vitro culture of embryos only among women aged 29 and younger. In the same time, among twins, this ratio positively associated with in vitro culture of embryos under microvibration only among women aged 30–34 years as well as ≥40 years and negatively among women aged 35–39 years. It was concluded that birth weight of infants was positively associated with mode of in vitro culture of embryos under microvibration among women of all age groups. This trial registration number is ISRCTN13773904, registered 6 April 2016.

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PARTIALLY CONSTRAINED SEX ALLOCATION AND THE INDIRECT EFFECTS OF ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES ON THE HUMAN SEX RATIO

Journal of Biosocial Science ◽

10.1017/s0021932016000146 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 281-291 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ian C. W. Hardy ◽

Walid E. Maalouf

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Sex Ratio ◽

Indirect Effects ◽

Ethical Issues ◽

Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽

Sex Ratios ◽

Reproductive Technologies ◽

Health Concern ◽

Discernible Effect ◽

Art Techniques

SummaryInfertility affects around 15% of human couples and in many countries approximately 1–4% of babies are born following Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Several ART techniques are used and these differentially affect the sex ratio of offspring successfully produced. These direct effects on sex ratio also have the potential to influence, indirectly, the sex ratios of offspring born to untreated couples. This is of concern because human sex ratio bias may adversely affect public health. Here the extent of indirect effects of ART that could operate, via Fisherian frequency-dependent natural selection, on the progeny sex ratio of unassisted members of a population is heuristically modelled. Given the degrees to which ART techniques bias sex ratios directly, it is predicted that well over 20% of couples would have to reproduce via ART for there to be any discernible effect on the sex ratios produced, in response, by the remainder of the population. This value is greater than the estimated prevalence of infertility problems among human couples. It is concluded that providing ART to couples with fertility problems does not currently generate significant ethical issues or public health concern in terms of indirect effects on the offspring sex ratios of untreated couples.

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Re-imagining Reproduction: Unsettling Metaphors in the History of Imperial Science and Commercial Surrogacy in India

Somatechnics ◽

10.3366/soma.2015.0149 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 88-103 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Kalindi Vora

Keyword(s):

Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽

Reproductive Technologies ◽

The Body ◽

Body Parts ◽

Colonial History ◽

Women's Bodies ◽

Commercial Surrogacy ◽

Art Practices ◽

History Of ◽

Travel Industry

This paper provides an analysis of how cultural notions of the body and kinship conveyed through Western medical technologies and practices in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) bring together India's colonial history and its economic development through outsourcing, globalisation and instrumentalised notions of the reproductive body in transnational commercial surrogacy. Essential to this industry is the concept of the disembodied uterus that has arisen in scientific and medical practice, which allows for the logic of the ‘gestational carrier’ as a functional role in ART practices, and therefore in transnational medical fertility travel to India. Highlighting the instrumentalisation of the uterus as an alienable component of a body and subject – and therefore of women's bodies in surrogacy – helps elucidate some of the material and political stakes that accompany the growth of the fertility travel industry in India, where histories of privilege and difference converge. I conclude that the metaphors we use to structure our understanding of bodies and body parts impact how we imagine appropriate roles for people and their bodies in ways that are still deeply entangled with imperial histories of science, and these histories shape the contemporary disparities found in access to medical and legal protections among participants in transnational surrogacy arrangements.

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