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Landrum Brewer Shettles (1909-2003)

Landrum Brewer Shettles is remembered as an important contributor to early in vitro fertilization research in the United States as well as a prolific author on the subject of choosing a child's sex before conception. Shettles was born in Pontotoc County, Mississippi on 21 November 1909 to Sue Mounce and Brazil Manly. Shettles trained and worked as a gynecologist at Columbia University Presbyterian Medical Center, after receiving his MD in 1943 from Johns Hopkins University.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

The Mothers' Clinic

The Mothers' Clinic for Constructive Birth Control was established on 17 March 1921. The first family planning clinic ever established in Great Britain, it was co-founded by Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes and her husband Humphrey Verdon Roe at Number 61, Marlborough Road in Holloway, North London. The Mothers' Clinic was one of the highlights of Stopes's extensive career as a proponent of available birth control and women's sexual equality.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations, Reproduction

Anencephaly

Anencephaly is an open neural tube defect, meaning that part of the neural tube does not properly close or that it has reopened during early embryogenesis. An embryo with anencephaly develops without the top of the skull, but retains a partial skull, including the face. Anencephaly is one of the most common birth defects of the neural tube, occurring at a rate of approximately one in one thousand human pregnancies. The condition can be caused by environmental exposure to chemicals, dietary deficiencies, or genetic mutations.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

Leon Chesley (1908-2000)

Leon Chesley studied hypertension, or high blood pressure, in pregnant women during the mid-twentieth century. Chesley studied preeclampsia and eclampsia, two hypertensive disorders found in approximately five percent of all US pregnancies. In New Jersey and New York, Chesley devoted over forty years to researching preeclampsia and eclampsia. Chesley conducted several long-term studies using the same group of women beginning from their pregnancies.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Norman Haire (1892-1952)

Norman Haire was a physician who advocated for eugenics, which is the betterment of human population by promoting positive traits, and birth control rights in the twentieth century in both Australia and the UK. In the UK, Haire joined the Malthusian League, a contraception advocacy organization, and helped the League open the first physician-supervised birth control clinic, called Walworth Women’s Welfare Centre in London, England.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

The Discovery of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

The term Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was first published in 1973 in an article published in the British medical journal The Lancet. In that article, a group of pediatricians and psychiatrists at the University of Washington Medical School helped to define the morphological defects and developmental delays that can affect children born to alcoholic mothers. Those observations include pre- and post-natal growth deficiencies, minor facial abnormalities, and damage to the developing brain that can result in behavioral, learning, and cognitive abnormalities.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

James Marion Sims (1813-1883)

James Marion Sims developed a surgical cure for ruptures of the wall separating the bladder from the vagina during labor, ruptures called vesico-vaginal fistulas, and he developed techniques and tools used to improve reproductive examinations and health care for women in the US during the nineteenth century. Sims's lateral examination position allowed doctors to better see the vaginal cavity, and his speculum, a spoon-like object used for increased view into the vagina, helped to make gynecological examinations more thorough.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Elinor Catherine Hamlin (1924- )

Elinor Catherine Hamlin founded and helped fund centers in Ethiopia to treat women affected by fistulas from obstetric complications. Obstetric fistulas develop in women who experience prolonged labor, as the pressure placed on the pelvis by the fetus during labor causes a hole, or fistula, to form between the vagina and the bladder (vesicovaginal fistula) or between the vagina and the rectum (rectovaginal fistula). Both of those conditions result in urinary or fecal incontinence, which often impacts womenÍs social status within their communities.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Retinoids As Teratogens

Vitamin A (retinol) is an essential vitamin in the daily functioning of human beings that helps regulate cellular differentiation of epithelial tissue. Studies have shown that an excess of vitamin A can affect embryonic development and result in teratogenesis, or the production of birth defects in a developing embryo. Excess intake of vitamin A and retinoids by pregnant women often results malformations to fetuses' skulls, faces, limbs, eyes, central nervous system.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

History of the Monash IVF Research Program from 1971 to 1989

In 1971, a group of researchers founded the Monash IVF Research Program with the mission to discover how in vitro fertilization, or IVF, techniques could become a treatment for infertility in both men and women. The program included researcher Carl Wood and colleagues John Leeton, Alex Lopata, Alan Trounson, and Ian Johnston at the Queen Victoria Medical Center and Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Since the program’s establishment in 1971, the Monash IVF Research Program has helped to develop and implement many IVF technologies still used in clinical practice as of 2020.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations, Reproduction

Isotretinoin (Accutane) as a Teratogen

Isotretinoin is a molecule and a byproduct (metabolite) of vitamin A, and in greater than normal amounts in pregnant women, it can cause fetal abnormalities including cleft lips, ear and eye defects, and mental retardation. Isotretinoin is commonly called by its trade name Accutane, and it's a chemical compound derived from vitamin A, or retinoic acid. Doctors prescribe isotretinoin to treat severe acne. For pregnant women, too much vitamin A or isotretinoin can also cause greater than normal rates of stillbirths and fetal disintegrations after the ninth week of gestation.

Format: Articles

Subject: Reproduction, Disorders

Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) Caused by Fertility Treatment

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, abbreviated OHSS, is an atypical reaction that women may experience in response to excessive hormones, and often occurs during fertility treatments. OHSS is typically triggered by hormonal medications designed to mature eggs in the ovaries, which can cause blood vessels within the ovaries to leak fluid. Sometimes that can lead to painful tenderness or swelling. In severe cases of OHSS, that fluid can leak into the abdominal cavity in large amounts, causing vomiting, blood clots, and severe pain.

Format: Articles

Subject: Reproduction

The Development of Mifepristone for Use in Medication Abortions

In the 1980s, researchers at the pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf in Paris, France, helped develop a biological compound called mifepristone. When a woman takes it, mifepristone interferes with the function of hormones involved in pregnancy and it can therefore be used to terminate pregnancies. In 2000, the US Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, also called RU 486, as part of a treatment to induce abortions using drugs instead of surgery, a method called medication abortion.

Format: Articles

Subject: Reproduction

Pierre Budin (1846-1907)

Pierre Constant Budin worked in France to improve the lives of newborns and their mothers during the late nineteenth century. Budin stressed the importance of proper nutrition in infants and educated new mothers on breastfeeding and infant care. Budin established infant care facilities and created a nutritional check-up system for infants. Budin helped design early artificial nipples, breast pumps, and incubators for premature newborns. He also began the practice of consulting with new mothers after they gave birth, redefining the roles of obstetricians.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

William Smellie (1697–1763)

William Smellie helped to incorporate scientific medicine into the process of childbirth in eighteenth century Britain. As a male physician practicing in childbirth and female reproductive health (man-midwife), Smellie developed and taught procedures to treat breech fetuses, which occur when a fetus fails to rotate its head towards the birth canal during delivery. Throughout his career, Smellie compiled a wealth of information about female anatomy in his writings. He modified medical technology such as the obstetrical forceps, an instrument used to maneuver the fetus during childbirth.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

The Effects of Bisphenol A on Embryonic Development

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic compound that was first synthesized by Aleksandr Dianin, a Russian chemist from St. Petersburg, in 1891. The chemical nomenclature of BPA is 2,2-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) propane. The significance of this synthesized compound did not receive much attention until 1936, when two biochemists interested in endocrinology, Edward Dodds and William Lawson, discovered its ability to act as an estrogen agonist in ovariectomized, estrogen-deficient rats.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

Johns Hopkins Fertility Center

Johns Hopkins Medical Center, located in Baltimore, Maryland, opened in 1889; its associated medical school opened four years later. Today the hospital, a leading research center, contains many departments, including a fertility center that is renowned for taking on difficult cases that have been rejected by other fertility clinics. The fertility center was founded by physician Georgeanna Seegar Jones in 1939 as the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology in the gynecology department. The division expanded once formal training in reproductive endocrinology began in 1973.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations, Reproduction

Conjoined Twins

Conjoined twins are twins whose bodies are anatomically joined in utero. The degree to which the twins are attached can range from simple, involving skin and cartilage, to complex, including fusion of the skull(s), brain(s), or other vital organs. There are more than a dozen classifications of conjoined twins but what they all tend to have in common is the sharing of the chorion, placenta, and amniotic sac.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

Diprosopus (Craniofacial Duplication)

Diprosopus is a congenital defect also known as craniofacial duplication. The exact description of diprosopus refers to a fetus with a single trunk, normal limbs, and facial features that are duplicated to a certain degree. A less severe instance is when the nose is duplicated and the eyes are spaced far apart. In the most extreme instances, the entire face is duplicated, hence the name diprosopus, which is Greek for two-faced. Fetuses with diprosopus often also lack brains (anencephaly), have neural tube defects, or heart malformations.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome

Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) is a rare placental disease that can occur at any time during pregnancy involving identical twins. TTTS occurs when there is an unequal distribution of placental blood vessels between fetuses, which leads to a disproportionate supply of blood delivered. This unequal allocation of blood leads to developmental problems in both fetuses that can range in severity depending on the type, direction, and number of interconnected blood vessels.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

John Charles Rock (1890-1984)

Born on 24 March 1890 in Marlborough, Massachusetts, to Ann and Frank Rock, John Charles Rock was both a devout Catholic and one of the leading investigators involved in the development of the first oral contraceptive pill. In 1925 he married Anna Thorndike, with whom he later had five children. He spent over thirty years of his career as a clinical professor of obstetrics at Harvard Medical School, and in 1964 the Center for Population Studies of the Harvard School of Public Health established the John Rock Professorship.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Center for Reproductive Health (1986-1995)

The Center for Reproductive Health was a fertility clinic run by a partnership of world-renowned fertility specialists from 1986 to 1995. The Center operated at three clinic locations under affiliation with the University of California Irvine 's Medical Center (UCIMC). The Center's renowned specialists and medical success stories attracted clients worldwide until evidence of highly unethical practices conducted by doctors there resulted in over one hundred lawsuits against the University. At issue was the doctors' misappropriation and unauthorized use of eggs and embryos.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations, Reproduction

Georgeanna Seegar Jones (1912-2005)

Georgeanna Seegar Jones was a reproductive endocrinologist who created one of America' s most successful infertility clinics in West Virginia and eventually, along with her husband Howard W. Jones MD, performed the first in vitro fertilization in America, leading to the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr. Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 6 July 1912. Her father, Dr. John King Beck Emory Seegar, was a practicing physician at the time working in the field of obstetrics.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Developmental Timeline of Alcohol-Induced Birth Defects

Maternal consumption of alcohol (ethanol) during pregnancy can result in a continuum of embryonic developmental abnormalities that vary depending on the severity, duration, and frequency of exposure of ethanol during gestation. Alcohol is a teratogen, an environmental agent that impacts the normal development of an embryo or fetus. In addition to dose-related concerns, factors such as maternal genetics and metabolism and the timing of alcohol exposure during prenatal development also impact alcohol-related birth defects.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction

Corpus Callosum Defects Associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) can result in a continuum of developmental abnormalities that are highly variable depending on the severity, duration, frequency, and timing of exposure during gestation. Defects of the corpus callosum (CC) have proven to be a reliable indicator of prenatal alcohol exposure as it affects the brain. Structural abnormalities of the CC occur along a continuum, like most alcohol-induced anomalies, whereby more severe prenatal exposure results in a greater expression of the abnormal trait.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction