Should reproductive hormones be used to alter fertility?

Multiple births can also be a problem when drugs are used to increase fertility as they can occur in 50% of cases particularly in young women under 30. Multiple births can be also be a problem as they can result in sickly premature babies. Wherever ovulation is induced with fertility drugs multiple births will always be a risk. Where conception takes place unassisted there is about one in eighty chance. When inducing ovulation the figure is one in ten. During fertility treatment when the patients are scanned to check the progress of the drug on the ovaries if four more mature follicles are found on the scan the cycle is abandoned because of the increased risk of multiple pregnancy. I think that this is wrong, because the women's hopes are raised; the person has also had lots of expensive drugs put into her body which have been wasted. It is not fair on the person having the treatment. There are also some religious reasons as many cultures do not believe in using drugs to alter a person's fertility and they believe that it is god's way and that if you can not have a child naturally you should not have a child by using drugs.

Another example on when reproductive hormones are used to control fertility. I believe that hormones should be used to alter fertility in this example but the person using the hormones needs to careful. These types of reproductive hormones do not have as strong side effects as reproductive hormones used to increase fertility.

The contraceptive pill is made from synthetic hormones made in a factory. There are long lists of side effects which may occur when taking the pill some of the most common ones are weight gain, cancer risks and blood clots. Doctors believe that when the risks and benefits are compared they think that they do more good than harm.

When using hormones for contraception there are many undesirable side effects which occur, "for example in recent years the proportion of oestrogen which is being used has decreased quite a lot as it can cause a increased risk of thrombosis. " Mary Jones and Geoff Jones, Advanced biology, Cambridge university press, New York. There are many other hormonal contraceptives with side effects. From recent research it has shown that this reproductive hormone can increase the chance of breast cancer. "Various studies give conflicting reports on the relationship between breast cancer and hormonal contraceptive use. Combination hormonal contraceptives, may slightly increase your chance of having breast cancer" http://www.weitzlux.com/orthoevralawsuit/breastreproductivecancer_100725.html

Many people believe that fertility is only controlled on humans but reproduction can also be controlled with animals. For example a cow usually has a single calf which means they only produce a few cows in their life time; however they produce a large number of egg cells which do not get fertilised. Farmers now have found a way to use the usually unused cells. An animal with all of the farmers desired qualities is chosen. The cow is then injected with follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinising hormone (LH) which means that the follicles in the cows ovary develop and the cow ovulates. The cow can be made to produce a larger amount of eggs than normal. When the cow comes into oestrus the cow is artificially inseminated. The cells are fertilised and start to develop into embryos. The embryos are removed from the cow's uterus, sorted out and examined under the microscope. The normal embryos are transferred into other cows which will act as mothers for the developing calves. The oestrous cycles of the donor cow and the recipient cow are synchronised. This is important as the uterus of the recipient cow will not be in a suitable condition for the embryos to implant. "It has been estimated that if farmers used the technology of 30 years ago, cost of food would be two to three times higher than it currently is" Bill Indge, Martin Rowland, Margaret Baker, A new introduction to biology, Hodder and Stoughton, London

I think that this is a very big advantage to use hormones in this way as it is keeping the prices of meat down and the farmers can have more desirable cattle. It has also found to be a very successful as shown from the figures from research conducted by http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/T0117E/T0117E12.htm

"On average, two to four calves will result per superovulated donor under the following field conditions: normal, fertile donors being superovulated for the first or second time, excellent management, well-trained embryo transfer personnel, sufficient synchronous recipients for the majority of embryos, surgical or non-surgical transfer by experienced technicians with proven skills, and unfrozen embryos. If embryos are frozen, the average will be 15-20 percent lower." However many ideal circumstances need to be met for these statistics to be made possible. So it is very difficult to get the results mentioned above. Cost of this technology are high, the costs of the actual embryo transfer are relatively low but the costs of labour and fees costs are high as normal healthy cows are kept out of production to be used as recipients. However when production is higher costs are lower as it is spread over more cows.

In conclusion I believe that everyone has the right to have a baby but I think that a holistic approach should be taken rather than reproductive hormones as this a more natural way. When you are taking the hormones you are interfering with the body's natural ways, many people do not believe in this and think that it should be left to natural way. Adoption is also another alternative and has many social problems which affect a person decision to choose fertility over adoption. I think that hormones should be used in contraception as they have less serious side effects than the ones used for increasing fertility and everyone has the right to choose if they want a baby and how they choose to conceive the baby. I do think though that reproductive hormones should be used to help with the reproduction.

Bibliography

Websites

http://www.weitzlux.com/orthoevralawsuit/breastreproductivecancer_100725.html

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/web3/pendzich.html

http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Womens%20Health/infertil.htm

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/T0117E/T0117E11.htm

Books

Mary Jones and Geoff Jones, Advanced biology, Cambridge university press, New York.

C J Clegg with D G Mackean, Advanced biology Principles and applications, John Murray publishers, London

Bill Indge, Martin Rowland and Margaret Baker, A new introduction to biology, Hodder and Stoughton, London

Leaflets

Fertility clinic, January 2005, review date January 2008, Mr J Hopkisson

Amy Gaffney Skill I and J Coursework