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A Belgian woman has become the first to give birth to a child after having ovarian tissue that was removed and frozen nearly 14 years earlier transplanted back into her body:
The 27-year-old had an ovary removed at age 13, just before she began invasive treatment for sickle cell anaemia. Her remaining ovary failed following the treatment, meaning she would have been unlikely to conceive without the transplant. Experts hope that this procedure could eventually help other young patients. The woman gave birth to a healthy boy in November 2014, and details of the case were published on Wednesday in the journal Human Reproduction.
The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, was diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia at the age of five. She emigrated from the Republic of Congo to Belgium where doctors decided her disease was so severe that she needed a bone marrow transplant using her brother's matching tissue. But before they could begin the bone marrow transplant, they needed to give her chemotherapy to disable her immune system and stop it from rejecting the foreign tissue. Chemotherapy can destroy the ovarian function, so they removed her right ovary and froze tissue fragments. At that time, she was showing signs of puberty, but had not yet started her periods. Her remaining ovary failed at 15. Ten years later, she decided she wanted to have a baby, so doctors grafted four of her thawed ovarian fragments onto her remaining ovary and 11 fragments onto other sites in her body. The patient started menstruating spontaneously five months later, and became pregnant naturally at the age of 27.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday June 12 2015, @09:33PM
From my intentionally childfree perspective, I look at this and think it's just crazy. I mean, first off, the world needs extra humans like it needs a major oil spill and so I sit in wonder at the massive amount of money spent on fertility treatments ... obviously, irrational desires (like the one to spawn that I happily avoided) can drive a lot of business. And speaking of business, this is an awesome business plan for doctors -- make sure that people with dangerous genetic conditions that require expensive medical treatments, pass those genes on through additional expensive treatments, and in so doing, create a whole new generation of customers for expensive medical treatments. Not just "PROFIT!" -- exponential profit growth potential. Breeders are weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:38AM
> irrational desires (like the one to spawn that I happily avoided) can drive a lot of business.
Part of becoming an adult is recognizing that different people have different motivations and your motivations aren't neceesarily better than their's.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 13 2015, @07:10AM
That depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to create a sustainable living environment for present and future generations, then insane population growth probably isn't a good thing. If you're short-sighted and don't care, then it probably doesn't matter. But lots of people would at least say they care about what will happen in the future. And the effects our actions have on the environment and how many resources we consume can be objectively determined, so it's not just a 'You have your view and I'll have mine.' situation if you have a certain goal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 13 2015, @01:16AM
One can argue that you are the one with the irrational desires. It appears that you wish to end your own family tree. Virtually all of life desires to reproduce, and to pass on it's genes. You presume that being different somehow makes you superior - but it's equally possible that being different means that you are defective. No, I'm not intentionally being insulting - not any more than you were intentionally being insulting when you you claimed to be more rational than all of your peers who wish to procreate.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday June 13 2015, @04:51AM
I'm not insulted. I'm right!
(where's my weedburner?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @07:03AM
One can argue that you are the one with the irrational desires. It appears that you wish to end your own family tree. Virtually all of life desires to reproduce, and to pass on it's genes. You presume that being different somehow makes you superior
Irrational? Looks like you missed the part where the grand parent mentioned the over population problem the world is currently facing. So that makes his choise certainly rational, even heroic.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 13 2015, @07:14AM
One can argue that you are the one with the irrational desires. It appears that you wish to end your own family tree. Virtually all of life desires to reproduce, and to pass on it's genes.
None of which is particularly important, especially with as many people as there are now.
You presume that being different somehow makes you superior - but it's equally possible that being different means that you are defective.
This depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to ensure a good quality of life for the future, then breeding mindlessly probably isn't a good idea. And I suspect most people would at least entertain the notion of thinking about the future.
But I don't expect much from people who can't control themselves to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:53PM
"the world needs extra humans"
The world or universe doesn't need anything. It's all a series of accidents.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday June 15 2015, @05:04PM
Currently the United States isn't the problem. China and India are somewhat comparative to the United States in size and they have 1.3 billion and 1.2 billion people respectively. Africa and Asia have the most undernourished people. According to a report by the "Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations" from 2014-2016 about 20% of the population of Africa or 232.5 million people are undernourished and 12.1% of the population of Asia or 511.7 million people are undernourished. There are undoubtedly many reasons for why that is the case, but people in the United States not having kids won't solve the problem. India and China both make up a good percentage of the Asian number at 194.6 million of the population and 133.8 million respectively or 15.2% and 9.3% of their populations. In comparison the United States has less than 5% of people undernourished, they don't even bother to assign a specific number. That may be in part due to the fact that we have lots of programs to help keep our poor fed. I know that I donate to our Local food bank. It's popular with grocery stores to have give money to your local food bank. Our local post office runs a help feed people thing usually around Thanksgiving time where you just leave a bag of non-perishable items for them to pickup. That's just to name a couple of examples.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"