Anatomy & Physiology
May
16
| Natural menopause occurs around the mean age of 50 however, within the past few years, timelines associated with family planning have changed dramatically. Modern societies have demanded for more options to extend the female reproductive lifespan improving the odds of conceiving at a later age, but is this right and/or ethical? What does the future hold? |
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| It is well established that female reproductive performance dramatically drops around age 40 due to the reduction of the ovarian reserve (i.e. the pool of quiescent follicles); however, increasingly more women are seeking to procreate beyond the capacity of their innate biological clocks. Technological advancements in assisted reproduction have made this a possibility. |
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| Starting a family later in life is not always a matter of choice. In fact, infertility often forces patients to attempt in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure that may take time to be successful. Cancer is yet another example where afflicted young women are forced to delay starting a family, while preserving their capacity of future fertility. On the other hand many women are choosing to conceive later in age. We reside in a rapidly evolving society and many of the decisions involved with the responsibilities of parenthood are more heavily influenced than what would have been decades ago. Today, socio-economic factors play pivotal roles on influencing a young woman’s decision to delay starting a family. US statistics have reported that from 1973 to 2009, the birth rate for women in their 20s has declined steadily over the last two decades, while increasing for women in their 30s. A similar increase is seen for women in their 40s perhaps suggesting changes in personal and professional priorities for women of younger ages. Notably, the birth rate for women in their 50s depicts a remarkable 300 percent increase since 1997, the year when data for women age 50 and over first became available. |
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Anatomy and Physiology
Anatomy & Physiology
May
09
Human reproduction is a very complex process and now a days it is not very efficient because of various environmental chemicals, smoking and diet factors affecting the fertility [1 
]. Early pregnancy loss in humans often occurs due to defects before, during or immediately after implantation, is a worldwide social and economic concern. In majority of cases, spontaneous abortion occur at the time of blastocyst implantation due to inappropriate uterine environment results diminished uterine receptivity or delayed implantation [2 ]. This unwanted failure of pregnancy causes emotional and psychological stress in women which emerges another clinical problem-the problem of infertility. Many underlying causes of human infertility have been overcome by in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer technique. The ultimate goal of understanding implantation at a molecular level is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. Normal fertility involves production and maturation of male and female germ cells by the gonads, fertilization of the oocyte by spermatozoa and implantation in the uterus. The implantation of the healthy blastocyst into the maternal receptive uterus is a very crucial step in mammalian reproduction for successful pregnancy and it involves an intricate succession of genetic and cellular interactions, all of which must be executed within an optimal time frame. The fertilized egg undergoes specific cell divisions to form a blastocyst. These developmental events are synchronized with the proliferation and differentiation of specific uterine cell types, primarily under the direction of ovarian hormone like Progesterone (P4) and Estrogen (E2). These hormones make the uterus conductive (receptive) to accept a blastocyst for implantation. A reciprocal interaction between the blastocyst and receptive uterus is essential for blastocyst implantation.
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Anatomy and Physiology
Anatomy & Physiology
May
05
| It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the normative base of cardiac valve’s dimensions for cardio-surgical practice. The normative base allows: 1. To assess the degree of deviation from the normal value; 2. To eliminate disproportion between the altered dimension the normal value during the correction of a congenital heart defect; 3. To predict the results of surgical correction as well as its impact on the development of the heart after surgical intervention, which is especially important for the pediatric population; 4. To assess the efficacy of a surgical correction during the follow-up. |
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| However, it remains unclear, which morfomentric normative base should be used for the assessment of cardiac valves. Morphometry can be performed on fixed as well as non-fixed preparations. Methods of measurement differ from one study to another. Many publications, especially those that are devoted to congenital heart defects, contain normative data in control group only. Usually, due to the specific aim of a given study, this group is not large and includes a narrow age range. |
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Anatomy and Physiology
