Tag Archives | Pregnancy

Male DNA Commonly Found in Women’s Brains

By Good German on October 5, 2012 in News 16

Picture: (PD)

Male DNA is commonly found in the brains of women, most likely derived from prior pregnancy with a male fetus, according to first-of-its-kind research conducted at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. While the medical implications of male DNA and male cells in the brain are unknown, studies of other kinds of microchimerism — the harboring of genetic material and cells that were exchanged between fetus and mother during pregnancy — have linked the phenomenon to autoimmune diseases and cancer, sometimes for better and other times for worse.

The study findings are published Sept. 26 in PLOS ONE. Lead author William F. N. Chan, Ph.D., in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta, conducted the research while working in the Hutchinson Center laboratory of J. Lee Nelson, M.D., a member of the Center’s Clinical Research Division and a leading international authority on microchimerism. Nelson is senior author on the paper.

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Study: Doctors Using Dangerous Steroids On Fetuses In Experiment To Reduce Lesbianism, Tomboyism, Intersexuality

By JacobSloan on August 20, 2012 in News 2

In short, U.S. doctors have injected at least a thousand pregnant women with hazardous, non-FDA-approved synthetic steroids (without warning them of the risks) in a bizarre experimental effort to reduce future “tomboyism, lesbianism and bisexuality” in fetuses that may be genetically prone to those traits. The Northwestern University News Center unravels the disturbing medical news:

A new paper just published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail an extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes.

The pregnant women targeted are at risk for having a child born with the condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrinological condition that can result in female fetuses being born with intersex or more male-typical genitals and brains. Women genetically identified as being at risk are given dexamethasone, a synthetic steroid, off-label starting as early as week five of the first trimester to try to “normalize” the development of those fetuses, which are female and CAH-affected.

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North Carolina To Compensate Thousands Of Forced-Sterilization Victims

By JacobSloan on July 5, 2011 in News 17

The North Carolina Eugenics Board was created in 1933 and operated for decades with little public scrutiny. It used rudimentary IQ tests and gossip from neighbors to justify sterilization of young girls from poor families.

Many people don’t realize that portions of the U.S. South had eugenics programs that operated through the 1970s. NPR reports on some horrifying fairly-recent history:

Barely 40 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a single mother on welfare, or a patient in a mental hospital in North Carolina, to be sterilized against her will.

But North Carolina wasn’t alone: More than half of states in the U.S. had eugenics laws, some of which persisted into the 1970s.

North Carolina is now considering compensating its sterilization victims. A state panel heard from some of them Wednesday. They were mostly poor and uneducated — both black and white — and often just girls when it happened.

Elaine Riddick says she was sterilized at the age of 14.

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Kansas: The First Abortion-Free State?

By JacobSloan on June 24, 2011 in News 18

Kansas is apparently set to become conservative Christianity’s Mecca. Via Mother Jones:

If new guidelines from the Kansas health department are enforced, the last three abortion clinics in the state could be forced to shut their doors this summer. A court fight over the rules is almost inevitable. But anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue are already claiming success in making Kansas “the first abortion-free state.”

The state’s latest approach—with its remodeling requirements and so forth—is often referred to as “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.” TRAP laws are intended to make it difficult, if not impossible, for clinics to operate, and they have become increasingly common around the country.

The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor’s closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained.

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Rwanda To Run Vasectomy Campaign To Curb Population Growth

By Pelliciari on February 4, 2011 in News 7

Photo: Rwanda soilders singing anti-AIDS songs. All soilders are counseled and tested for HIV.

An interesting tactic in controlling population growth, but how does one come up with a slogan for a campaign supporting both vasectomies and HIV prevention? Stop the spread of disease and babies? BBC News reports:

Rwanda’s government has said it wants to encourage men to have vasectomies in a bid to stem the small landlocked country’s growing population.

It would be done along with its HIV prevention campaign to encourage all men to be circumcised.

Health officials would take the opportunity to talk to men about the birth-control method at the same time.

A BBC reporter in Rwanda says vasectomies are uncommon in the country and the move may meet resistance.

[Continues at BBC News]… Read the rest

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Pregnancy Helps Liver?

By phunkychic666 on April 30, 2010 in News 2

liver By Alla Katsnelson for TheScientist.com:

Pregnancy boosts the regenerative capacity of the liver in mice, a finding that may shed light on a process entirely separate from pregnancy — aging, researchers report in a study published this week in Genes and Development.

The findings are “really unexpected,” said Nikolai Timchenko, who studies liver regeneration and aging at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

He noted that the researchers identified a specific regeneration mechanism present only during pregnancy and harnessed the relevant pathway to boost liver regeneration in aging mice. “I think from a molecular point of view this is the major discovery of this work,” he said.

[continues in TheScientist.com]… Read the rest

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