This contributed volume gathers the latest knowledge in the field of stem cells in human reproductive organs, as well as animal models, and to consider the possibility of using this knowledge for clinical purposes. The scope of the book covers both clinical and basic knowledge of stem cells in both reproductive medicine (gynecology and obstetrics) and regenerative medicine as well as cellular and molecular medicine and reproductive biology. Chapters on basic stem cell knowledge in human reproductive tissues and organs or animal models are included, as well as clinical knowledge on their role in the manifestation of infertility and cancer and their clinical use.

The Biotechnology Act in Norway, one of the most restrictive in Europe, forbids egg donation and surrogacy and has rescinded the anonymity clause with respect to donor insemination. Thus, it limits people's choice as to how they can procreate within the boundaries of the nation state. The author pursues this significant datum ethnographically and addresses the issues surrounding contemporary biopolitics in Norway. This involves investigating such fundamental questions as the relation between individual and society, meanings of kinship and relatedness, the moral status of the embryo and the role of science, religion and ethics in state policies. Even though the book takes reproductive technologies as its focus, it reveals much about vital processes that are central to contemporary Norwegian society.

How and to what extent have Islamic legal scholars and Middle Eastern lawmakers, as well as Middle Eastern Muslim physicians and patients, grappled with the complex bioethical, legal and social issues that are raised in the process of attempting to conceive life in the face of infertility? This path-breaking volume explores the influence of Islamic attitudes on assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and reveals the variations in both the Islamic jurisprudence and the cultural responses to ARTs.

1) Classic anatomical atlases 2) Detailed labeling of the earliest phases of prenatal nervous system development 3) Appeals to neuroanatomists, developmental biologists, and clinical practioners. 4) Persistent relevance - archival reference work that will be usable for decades.

While the practice of surrogacy has existed for millennia, new fertility technologies have allowed women to act as gestational surrogates, carrying children that are not genetically their own. While some women volunteer to act as gestational surrogates for friends or family members, others get paid for performing this service. The first ethnographic study of gestational surrogacy in the United States, Labor of Love examines the conflicted attitudes that emerge when the ostensibly priceless act of bringing a child into the world becomes a paid occupation. Heather Jacobson interviews not only surrogate mothers, but also their family members, the intended parents who employ surrogates, and the various professionals who work to facilitate the process. Seeking to understand how gestational surrogates perceive their vocation, she discovers that many regard surrogacy as a calling, but are reluctant to describe it as a job. In the process, Jacobson dissects the complex set of social attitudes underlying this resistance toward conceiving of pregnancy as a form of employment. Through her extensive field research, Jacobson gives readers a firsthand look at the many challenges faced by gestational surrogates, who deal with complicated medical procedures, delicate work-family balances, and tricky social dynamics. Yet Labor of Love also demonstrates the extent to which advances in reproductive technology are affecting all Americans, changing how we think about maternity, family, and the labor involved in giving birth.

The Lure of Hope portrays a snap shot of the rise and fall of commercial surrogacy in India. By chance, the author's fieldwork began around the same time NSW legislation in Australia extended its ban on commercial surrogacy to include overseas arrangements. Not long after returning from fieldwork in India, the Home Ministry of India changed the conditions of entry for intending parents (IPs) traveling to India for a surrogacy arrangement. From November 2013 IPs would have to apply for a medical visa, and could only obtain a medical visa for surrogacy if they had been married for at least two years. In 2016 the Indian Surrogacy (regulation) Act was introduced, commercial surrogacy was banned and foreigners were no longer able to enter into surrogacy arrangements in India. India was the first among a trail of 'pop up' reproductive destinations including Thailand, Nepal, Mexico, Cambodia and Laos. This book captures a moment in the recent history of the emerging global 'surroscape'. Alongside the detailed account of the experiences of parents and surrogate mothers the author offers a careful analysis of regulatory systems governing surrogacy and embryo use in Australia and India. With the authors archival research in the UK she further analyses the regulation of surrogacy with cross cultural comparison of the relatively longer history of surrogacy regulation in the UK. Reproductive technologies and the many options these create are ahead of the law and while the law struggles to keep up we have a rich field of investigation. What do different regulatory systems tell us about how we see society, children, women's bodies, reproduction and fecundity, kinship and family formation?

This is a reference manual for daily use in the Reproductive Medicine or Andrology laboratory, which goes beyond the literature available in the scientific journals by compiling insights into a detailed and applied clinical approach. All established practitioners in Reproductive Medicine will find much of practical relevance about the latest insights into sperm selection and analysis.

In the last decades, major advances have been made in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and the public demand for these procedures has increased globally. All ART clinics, from those just starting out to the well established, must employ the latest equipment and implement the best practices, while ensuring that their resources are effectively engaged to optimize patient outcomes. This is a tenet of the fiduciary role of physicians and it is increasingly recognized as a quantifiable goal regulated by formal certifications and accreditations. Quality management protocols such as those proposed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are being rapidly adopted as standards of measure. Quality Management in ART Clinics: A Practical Guide provides easily adoptable ways to implement and improve formalized quality management systems. Essential to any clinic to achieve best practices and maintenance of formal regulatory certifications, this book brings together the know-how of experienced opinion leaders operating in key areas worldwide. The book offers an overview of primary regulations in the ART field, with attention to quality management demands, and links specific requirements to practical steps for implementation. Filled with process and procedure examples, flow diagrams and administrative form templates, this book is the first of its kind, gathering the necessary elements for optimizing practice, management, and quality assurance.

Israel is the only country in the world that offers free fertility treatments to nearly any woman who requires medical assistance. It also has the world's highest per capita usage of in-vitro fertilization. Examining state policies and the application of reproductive technologies among Jewish Israelis, this volume explores the role of tradition and politics in the construction of families within local Jewish populations. The contributors-anthropologists, bioethicists, jurists, physicians and biologists-highlight the complexities surrounding these treatments and show how biological relatedness is being construed as a technology of power; how genetics is woven into the production of identities; how reproductive technologies enhance the policing of boundaries. Donor insemination, IVF and surrogacy, as well as abortion, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and human embryonic stem cell research, are explored within local and global contexts to convey an informed perspective on the wider Jewish Israeli environment.

Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli is a medical sociologist at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research concentrates on reproduction-related issues and the interface of health care and state politics. Birenbaum-Carmeli has published extensively in major professional journals and is the author of Tel Aviv North: The Making of a New Israeli Middle Class (Hebrew University Press) and the co-editor (with Marcia C. Inhorn) of Assisting Reproduction, Testing Genes: Global Encounters with New Biotechnologies (Berghahn Books).

Yoram S. Carmeli is an anthropologist at the University of Haifa, Israel, who has researched reproductive technologies in Israel. His other writings focus on popular culture with a particular interest in British circuses. He has also researched sport and consumption in Israel. Carmeli is the co-editor (with Kalman Applbaum) of Consumption and Market Society in Israel (Berg Publishers).

Premature Ejaculation presents a unique and innovative therapeutic program for the successful treatment of premature ejaculation. This descriptive and well-structured program is fundamentally different from traditional sex therapy and contemporary sexual medicine. Centred on the management of sexual excitement, it enables couples to prolong the length of intercourse without having to interrupt their lovemaking or resort to medication. The program's sexological approach also empowers couples with the skills and knowledge to strengthen their sex life leading to a healthier and happier relationship. Combining theory and practical instruction, Francois de Carufel's book promotes a better understanding of premature ejaculation. It offers a new perspective on the causes of this dysfunction and provides practitioners and therapists with concrete ways to assist men and women in improving their sex life. Premature Ejaculation will be of interest and value to health professionals and graduate students in all fields dealing with sexual difficulties, including psychology, social work, medicine, physical therapy, nursing and counselling.

Premature Ejaculation presents a unique and innovative therapeutic program for the successful treatment of premature ejaculation. This descriptive and well-structured program is fundamentally different from traditional sex therapy and contemporary sexual medicine. Centred on the management of sexual excitement, it enables couples to prolong the length of intercourse without having to interrupt their lovemaking or resort to medication. The program's sexological approach also empowers couples with the skills and knowledge to strengthen their sex life leading to a healthier and happier relationship. Combining theory and practical instruction, Francois de Carufel's book promotes a better understanding of premature ejaculation. It offers a new perspective on the causes of this dysfunction and provides practitioners and therapists with concrete ways to assist men and women in improving their sex life. Premature Ejaculation will be of interest and value to health professionals and graduate students in all fields dealing with sexual difficulties, including psychology, social work, medicine, physical therapy, nursing and counselling.

The Business of Being Made is the first book to critically analyze assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) from a transdisciplinary perspective integrating psychoanalytic and cultural theories. It is a ground-breaking collection exploring ARTs through diverse methods including interview research, clinical case studies, psychoanalytic based ethnography, and memoir. Gathering clinicians and researchers who specialize in this area, this book engages current research in psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and debates in feminist, queer and cultural theory about affect, temporality, and bodies. With psychoanalysis as its fulcrum, The Business of Being Made explores the social constructions and personal experiences of ARTs. Katie Gentile frames the cultural context, exploring the ways ARTs have become a complex form of playing with time, attempting to manufacture a hopeful future in the midst of growing global uncertainty. The contributors then present a range of varied experiences related to ARTs, including: Interviews with women and men undergoing ARTs; A psychoanalytic memoir of male infertility; Clinical research and work with transgender, gay and lesbian patients creating new Oedipal constellations, the experiences of LBGTQ people within the medical system and the variety of families that emerge; Research on the experiences of egg donors (now central to the business of ARTs) and a corresponding clinical case study of successful egg donation; The experiences of ongoing failure which is the often unacknowledged for ART procedures; How and when people choose to stop using ARTs; A psychoanalytic ethnography of a neonatal intensive care unit populated in part with the babies created through these technologies and their parents, haggard and in shock after years of failed attempts. Full of original material, The Business of Being Made conveys the ambivalence of these technologies without simplifying their complicated consequences for the bodies of individuals, the family, cultures, and our planet. This book will be relevant to clinicians, medical and psychological personnel working in assisted reproductive technologies and infertility, as well as academics working in the fields of sociology, literature, queer and feminist theories and at the intersections of cultural, critical and psychoanalytic theories.

The Business of Being Made is the first book to critically analyze assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) from a transdisciplinary perspective integrating psychoanalytic and cultural theories. It is a ground-breaking collection exploring ARTs through diverse methods including interview research, clinical case studies, psychoanalytic based ethnography, and memoir. Gathering clinicians and researchers who specialize in this area, this book engages current research in psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and debates in feminist, queer and cultural theory about affect, temporality, and bodies. With psychoanalysis as its fulcrum, The Business of Being Made explores the social constructions and personal experiences of ARTs. Katie Gentile frames the cultural context, exploring the ways ARTs have become a complex form of playing with time, attempting to manufacture a hopeful future in the midst of growing global uncertainty. The contributors then present a range of varied experiences related to ARTs, including: Interviews with women and men undergoing ARTs; A psychoanalytic memoir of male infertility; Clinical research and work with transgender, gay and lesbian patients creating new Oedipal constellations, the experiences of LBGTQ people within the medical system and the variety of families that emerge; Research on the experiences of egg donors (now central to the business of ARTs) and a corresponding clinical case study of successful egg donation; The experiences of ongoing failure which is the often unacknowledged for ART procedures; How and when people choose to stop using ARTs; A psychoanalytic ethnography of a neonatal intensive care unit populated in part with the babies created through these technologies and their parents, haggard and in shock after years of failed attempts. Full of original material, The Business of Being Made conveys the ambivalence of these technologies without simplifying their complicated consequences for the bodies of individuals, the family, cultures, and our planet. This book will be relevant to clinicians, medical and psychological personnel working in assisted reproductive technologies and infertility, as well as academics working in the fields of sociology, literature, queer and feminist theories and at the intersections of cultural, critical and psychoanalytic theories.

This book explores the cultural history of embryology in Tibet, in culture, religion, art and literature, and what this reveals about its medicine and religion. Filling a significant gap in the literature this is the first in-depth exploration of Tibetan medical history in the English language. It reveals the prevalence of descriptions of the development of the human body - from conception to birth - found in all forms of Tibetan religious literature, as well as in medical texts and in art. By analysing stories of embryology, Frances Garrett explores questions of cultural transmission and adaptation: How did Tibetan writers adapt ideas inherited from India and China for their own purposes? What original views did they develop on the body, on gender, on creation, and on life itself? The transformations of embryological narratives over several centuries illuminate key turning points in Tibetan medical history, and its relationship with religious doctrine and practice. Embryology was a site for both religious and medical theorists to contemplate profound questions of being and becoming, where topics such as pharmacology and nosology were left to shape secular medicine. The author argues that, in terms of religion, stories of human development comment on embodiment, gender, socio-political hierarchy, religious ontology, and spiritual progress. Through the lens of embryology, this book examines how these concerns shift as Tibetan history moves through the formative 'renaissance' period of the twelfth through to the seventeenth centuries.

One in six couples around the world experience infertility. Before undertaking expensive and intrusive assisted reproductive treatment such as in vitro fertilization, many seek advice from their physicians or dietitians on what foods and supplements might enhance their fertility. But health practitioners are often ill equipped to provide dietary recommendations in a scientifically based manner. Nutrition, Fertility, and Human Reproductive Function provides a comprehensive guide to clinicians on how they can best advise their patients to optimise fertility and reproductive function through optimal nutrition. Taking a holistic or "whole-of-life" approach, the book reviews the role of nutrition in human fertility and explores its effect on male and female reproductive physiology. Problem-orientated topics are arranged in chapters that each cover a specific clinical topic of interest, allowing easy reference by the practicing clinician. From the female perspective, the book covers the role of nutrition on essential reproductive processes such as ovulation, early embryo development, implantation, and sexual function, together with nutrition's influence on the duration of the reproductive life span. In the male context, it examines the effect of nutrition on hormone and sperm production as well as sexual function. The book also includes information on evidence-based complementary health approaches such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and naturopathy. This book draws on the wide experience of several respected leaders in clinical nutrition who combine research expertise with clinical insight. The information contained herein will enable clinicians to make the best recommendations for their patients for optimising fertility.

This book explores how conditions for childbearing are changing in the 21st century under the impact of new biomedical technologies. Selective reproductive technologies (SRTs) - technologies that aim to prevent or promote the birth of particular kinds of children - are increasingly widespread across the globe. Wahlberg and Gammeltoft bring together a collection of essays providing unique ethnographic insights on how SRTs are made available within different cultural, socio-economic and regulatory settings and how people perceive and make use of these new possibilities as they envision and try to form their future lives. Topics covered include sex-selective abortions, termination of pregnancies following detection of fetal anomalies during prenatal screening, the development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis techniques as well as the screening of potential gamete donors by egg agencies and sperm banks. This is invaluable reading for scholars of medical anthropology, medical sociology and science and technology studies, as well as for the fields of gender studies, reproductive health and genetic disease research.

Lax federal oversight, high technology resources, privatized health care, a pluralist population, and a commitment to professional autonomy make the United States an ideal host for reproductive tourists. Those who are in possession of enough material resources and political savvy can subvert their countries' norms and laws regarding reproductive technologies, in effect becoming procreative outlaws. This book examines the United States as a destination for international consumers of assisted fertility services, including egg donation, surrogacy, and sex selection. It is based on interviews conducted with fertility industry insiders who market their services to an international clientele in three of the largest American hubs of the global fertility marketplace - New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. By focusing on the providers rather than the consumers of assisted fertility services, the book shines a light on how professional ethics and norms, in addition to personal moralities, shape the practice of reproductive tourism.

Based on the author's fieldwork at assisted conception clinics in England in the mid-1990s, this is the first ethnographic study of the new procreative practices of anonymous ova and embryo donation. Giving voice to both groups of women participating in the demanding donation experience - the donors on the one side and the ever-hopeful IVF recipients on the other - Konrad shows how one dimension of the new reproductive technologies involves an unfamiliar relatedness between nameless and untraceable procreative strangers. Offsetting informants' local narratives against traditional Western folk models of the 'sexed' reproductive body, the book challenges some of the basic assumptions underlying conventional biomedical discourse of altruistic donation that clinicians and others promote as "gifts of life." It brings together a wide variety of literatures from social anthropology, social theory, cultural studies of science and technology, and feminist bioethics to discuss the relationship between recent developments in biotechnology and changing conceptions of personal origins, genealogy, kinship, biological ownership and notions of bodily integrity.

There are common midlife events that account for the special narcissistic vulnerabilities of this period of life, and Eda Goldstein ably reviews these events and the theoretical perspectives commonly brought to bear on them. In When the Bubble Bursts, however, Goldstein's special concern is those individuals who come to midlife with heightened narcissistic vulnerabilities that make the navigation of this stage of life more difficult still. In understanding the latter such patients and devising a treatment approach appropriate to their "self" issues, Goldstein adopts a broadly self-psychological frame of reference. It is a matter, she finds again and again, of understanding how current stressors frustrate healthy self needs and trigger narcissistic vulnerabilities. Self-psychologically informed treatment, which, in Goldstein's pragmatic purview, embraces modalities that are, to varying degrees, supportive, psychodynamic, and psychoanalytic, reworks and strengthens self structures in helping patients find new ways of affirming their sense of self. Her substantive case studies, which accompany the reader through all the chapters in her study, draw on personal and supervisory experiences to illustrate crucial foci of the treatment process with a range of midlife patients in psychotherapy. Eda Goldstein presents a study that comprises an admirable blend of theoretical astuteness, clinical wisdom, and personal honesty. Her clinical study of midlife narcissistic pathology is bracketed by her balanced discussion of theoretical perspectives on adult development and her concluding consideration of the countertransference issues elicited by midlife patients in midlife therapists. When the Bubble Bursts is an edifying contribution to the literatures of psychodynamic psychotherapy, self psychology, and adult development.

Each patient seeking assisted reproduction has a unique set of circumstances that affects the outcome of treatment. Particularly challenging are those patients with pre-existing medical conditions or those receiving medical therapies that may impact the safety and success of their IVF treatments. Prior identification and preparation of the patient at increased risk of complications will enable the clinician to avoid problems in advance, anticipate the necessary management, and optimize outcomes. A new expanded edition of the prize-winning text IVF in the Medically Complicated Patient: A Guide to Management, Second Edition provides a readily accessible, authoritative, and didactic source of information to aid clinicians in this important field.

This practical, extensively illustrated handbook covers the procedures that are undertaken in andrology and ART laboratories to analyse and assess male-factor infertility, and to prepare spermatozoa for use in assisted conception therapy. The content is presented as brief, authoritative overviews of the relevant biological background for each area, plus detailed, step-by-step descriptions of the relevant analytical procedures. Each technical section includes quality control considerations and the optimum presentation of results. In addition to the comprehensive 'basic' semen analysis, incorporating careful analysis of sperm morphology, the handbook provides established techniques for the use of computer-aided sperm analysis and sperm functional assessment. The interpretation of laboratory results in the clinical context is highlighted throughout, and safe laboratory practice is emphasized. Fully revised, incorporating the new ISO TS 23162 on basic human semen analysis throughout, this is an invaluable resource to all scientists and technicians who perform diagnostic testing for male-factor infertility.

A candid assessment of the pros and cons of delayed motherhood.
Biology does not bend to feminist ideals and science does not work miracles. That is the message of this eye-opening discussion of the consequences of delayed motherhood. Part personal account, part manifesto, Selvaratnam recounts her emotional journey through multiple miscarriages after the age of 37. Her doctor told her she still "had time," but Selvaratnam found little reliable and often conflicting information about a mature woman's biological ability (or inability) to conceive.
Beyond her personal story, the author speaks to women in similar situations around the country, as well as fertility doctors, adoption counselors, reproductive health professionals, celebrities, feminists, journalists, and sociologists. Through in-depth reporting and her own experience, Selvaratnam urges more widespread education and open discussion about delayed motherhood in the hope that long-lasting solutions can take effect. The result is a book full of valuable information that will enable women to make smarter choices about their reproductive futures and to strike a more realistic balance between science, society and personal goals.

Selecting the best embryo to transfer to the uterus is key to successful in vitro fertilization (IVF). A huge amount of research has been devoted to this topic and there are numerous methods used, from simple morphological assessment to molecular biological techniques to assess the genome and metabolism of the newly fertilized embryo. For many of these techniques, an adequate evidence base is lacking, and expert opinion is valuable. Clinical imperatives require ranking all embryos in a cohort according to their viability, thereby enabling the selection of the best embryo to optimize live birth outcome: a key indicator used to measure and rate IVF Clinics worldwide. This clear and informative manual will provide embryologists and clinicians with an overview of the tools now available to assist in embryo selection, as well as evidence for their efficacy and safety and the broader considerations that must underlie these important clinical decisions.

Spermatogenesis involves the coordination of a number of signaling pathways, which culminate into production of sperm. Its failure results in male factor infertility, which can be due to hormonal, environmental, genetic or other unknown factors. This book includes chapters on most of the signaling pathways known to contribute to spermatogenesis. Latest research in germ cell signaling like the role of small RNAs in spermatogenesis is also discussed. This book aims to serve as a reference for both clinicians and researchers, explaining possible causes of infertility and exploring various treatment methods for management through the basic understanding of the role of molecular signaling. Key Features Discusses the signaling pathways that contribute to successful spermatogenesis Covers comprehensive information about Spermatogenesis at one place Explores the vital aspects of male fertility and infertility Explains the epigenetic regulation of germ cell development and fertility Highlights the translational opportunities in molecular signaling in testis