Clinicians and scientists are increasingly recognising the importance of an evolutionary perspective in studying the aetiology, prevention, and treatment of human disease; the growing prominence of genetics in medicine is further adding to the interest in evolutionary medicine. In spite of this, too few medical students or residents study evolution. This book builds a compelling case for integrating evolutionary biology into undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, as well as its intrinsic value to medicine. Chapter by chapter, the authors - experts in anthropology, biology, ecology, physiology, public health, and various disciplines of medicine - present the rationale for clinically-relevant evolutionary thinking. They achieve this within the broader context of medicine but through the focused lens of maternal and child health, with an emphasis on female reproduction and the early-life biochemical, immunological, and microbial responses influenced by evolution. The tightly woven and accessible narrative illustrates how a medical education that considers evolved traits can deepen our understanding of the complexities of the human body, variability in health, susceptibility to disease, and ultimately help guide treatment, prevention, and public health policy. However, integrating evolutionary biology into medical education continues to face several roadblocks. The medical curriculum is already replete with complex subjects and a long period of training. The addition of an evolutionary perspective to this curriculum would certainly seem daunting, and many medical educators express concern over potential controversy if evolution is introduced into the curriculum of their schools. Medical education urgently needs strategies and teaching aids to lower the barriers to incorporating evolution into medical training. In summary, this call to arms makes a strong case for incorporating evolutionary thinking early in medical training to help guide the types of critical questions physicians ask, or should be asking. It will be of relevance and use to evolutionary biologists, physicians, medical students, and biomedical research scientists.

This volume explores the latest clinical and basic science advances in the field of reproductive sciences. Contributions from leading experts in the field cover a wide breadth of topics from in vitro fertilization to stem cell biology.Special focus is given to discussion of major obstacles in making clinical progress in the fields of in vitro fertilization, endometriois, uterine and ovarian transplantation, recurrent pregnancy loss, and preterm delivery. Novel evidence-based approaches to advance the field are discussed, including in vitro molecular approaches, translational studies, as well as those that may immediately be considered for use at the bedside to improve reproductive outcomes.

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Infertility affects an estimated 50 million women worldwide and has a wide range of causes including eating disorders, smoking, chemotherapy, diseases such as STIs, as well as genetic factors and malformations. The preliminary assessment and diagnosis involves a potentially broad array of lab and imaging tests, physical examination and potentially genetic tests, after which a management plan is selected depending on the woman’s age, the cause(s) and duration of the infertility. Female Infertility: Core Principles and Clinical Management provides clinicians with a comprehensive understanding of how best to overcome infertility using the various treatment options now available. The book opens with an introduction to the anatomy and physiology of the female reproductive system before describing the assessment and investigative tools used in primary and secondary healthcare settings. Subsequent chapters describe how to secure optimum functionality of the ovaries, the measurement of ovarian reserves, stimulation protocols and the process of oogenesis and oocyte collection. Given their potential adverse impact on the quality of oocytes and implantation, dedicated chapters focus on the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis. Concluding chapters address fast moving and future technologies, including the use of pluripotent stem cells for treating different medical conditions; the management of mitochondrial disease and the transplantation of cryopreserved ovaries. Highly illustrated and written by a team of international experts in the field, Female Infertility: Core Principles and Clinical Management serves as an essential resource for all clinicians, nurses and clinical scientists who specialise in reproductive medicine, gynecology, oncology, infertility and embryology.

"Extremely well-written, innovative, and timely, "Infertility Around the Globe is a definitive work. Together, the authors use infertility as the lens to examine numerous compelling social issues, generating a powerful argument that infertility is a globally significant phenomenon. This volume will attract anthropologists and other social scientists interested in the study of reproduction, as well as anyone interested in gender studies, women's studies, and international health."--Carolyn Sargent, co-editor of "Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

"This groundbreaking, interdisciplinary book will change how infertility is theorized and how intervention programs are designed. It will become the primary sourcebook for international and comparative research in a variety of cultural settings. Reading this book was a distinct pleasure."--Lynn Morgan, co-editor of "Fetal Subjects, Feminist Positions

"A stunning achievement. Through its richly textured ethnographic accounts, this book beautifully explicates the universals and particularities of involuntary childlessness in disparate world regions. It challenges the myopic view that the heartbreak is limited to advanced industrial societies. This book is a much-needed antidote in a field mostly characterized by polemic and untested assumptions."--C. H. Browner, UCLA School of Medicine

"Scholarship on infertility too often has been culture-bound, focusing on Western versions of biosocial reproductive problems and on technological solutions. This innovative volume decenters that perspective, with studies on the ostracism of elder childless men in Kenya, political suspicions of vaccination campaigns in theCameroons, new reproductive technologies for ultraorthodox use in Israel, and China's emergent eugenics. It enlarges the 'public' in public health."--Rayna Rapp, co-editor of "Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction

During the last two decades, a new form of trade in commercial surrogacy grew across Asia. Starting in India, a "disruptive" model of surrogacy offered mass availability, rapid accessibility, and created new demands for surrogacy services from people who could not afford or access surrogacy elsewhere. In International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia, Andrea Whittaker traces the development of this industry and its movement across Southeast Asia following a sequence of governmental bans in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia. Through a case study of the industry in Thailand, the book offers a nuanced and sympathetic examination of the industry from the perspectives of the people involved in it: surrogates, intended parents, and facilitators. The industry offers intended parents the opportunity to form much desired families, but also creates vulnerabilities for all people involved. These vulnerabilities became evident in cases of trafficking, exploitation, and criminality that emerged in southeast Asia, leading to greater scrutiny on the industry as a whole. Yet the trade continues in new flexible hybrid forms, involving the circulation of reproductive gametes, embryos, surrogates, and ova donors across international borders to circumvent regulations. The book demonstrates the need for new forms of regulation to protect those involved in international surrogacy arrangements.

Reproductive science continues to revolutionise reproduction and propel us further into uncharted territories. The revolution signalled by the birth of Louise Brown after IVF in 1978, prompted governments across Europe and beyond into regulatory action. Forty years on, there are now dramatic and controversial developments in new reproductive technologies. Technologies such as uterus transplantation that may enable unisex gestation and babies gestated by dad; or artificial wombs that will completely divorce reproduction from the human body and allow babies to be gestated by machines, usher in a different set of legal, ethical and social questions to those that arose from IVF. This book revisits the regulation of assisted reproduction and advances the debate on from the now much-discussed issues that arose from IVF, offering a critical analysis of the regulatory challenges raised by new reproductive technologies on the horizon.

Central to the book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different ""reproductive interruptions"": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar, as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of ""wasted wombs"" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies. Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations-be it marriage and motherhood, or rather an educational trajectory, employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called ""big fish""-women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.

Central to the book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different ""reproductive interruptions"": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar, as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of ""wasted wombs"" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies. Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations-be it marriage and motherhood, or rather an educational trajectory, employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called ""big fish""-women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.