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I feel like so much of these conversations lack the high level questioning around why IVF and related technology has become so prominent and increased in usage.

by spraak 9y ago

I feel like so much of these conversations lack the high level questioning around why IVF and related technology has become so prominent and increased in usage. Is the rate of fertility problems increasing? And why?

Kluny 9y ago
It's probably because women are waiting longer to have children and it's harder for older women to become pregnant.
ereyes01 9y ago
Maybe not in this particular article/thread, but it's been widely discussed how starting a family can be disruptive to a woman's career and professional development. The reasons it's disruptive could be due to companies / culture in general not being flexible and accommodating enough to motherhood. Taking time off from your career tends to be a very costly proposition in our current time. For these reasons, there's lots of pressure to delay starting a family, and it's no surprise that IVF has seen increased demand. Some companies (i.e. Facebook) even provide their female employees a benefit that covers freezing their eggs. This is somewhat controversial, as some would argue that Facebook (and other companies, and perhaps our culture in general) should instead focus on reducing the professional cost of starting a family. Therefore, these findings about growing human eggs could have great significance. I have friends grappling with this issue right now, so I understand how this discovery could be a great help to them. I hope that provides some useful context...
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  >>The reasons it's disruptive could be due to companies / culture in general not being flexible and accommodating enough to motherhood. That's a pretty critical view of things. I think a more objective view is that motherhood is costly for the mother in time and attention, and generally reduces the time and effort she puts into her career. Whether people operating in the business world should be encouraged or forced to give preferential treatment to mothers so that motherhood doesn't become a career disadvantage is an open question. One could argue it would be unfair to those women who choose to forego or forestall motherhood to dedicate more time to their careers.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >focus on reducing the professional cost of starting a family // Few professions are important enough to spare a passing thought over compared to the importance of raising children IMO. I mean Facebook? Do people working there, for example, really think social data mining for advertising is important in some way? Sure, income is important, but people don't say they want to protect their income, they always talk about career progression (which is conceptually unrelated). We've got plenty of people, making ways for people to sacrifice everything to a job without failing to reproduce seems pretty counter to any need.
  - namelost 9y ago
    This is part of a deeper problem in certain parts of America whereby one's personal value is determined entirely by one's net worth (and perhaps also education).
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      That’s not an American problem - it’s everywhere.
      - namelost 9y ago
        There are many parts of the world, even parts of America, where for a single woman or married couple to choose to remain childless in the pursuit of wealth would lower their social value more than the extra wealth would increase it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jedberg 9y ago
People are waiting a lot longer. I'm 40 and just had my second kid a few months ago. Our first is only 3. Only a generation ago the median age of birth was like 23 and now it's 27 or so, but that doesn't account for the edge cases. A lot of women have careers now that they didn't have a generation ago and delay childbirth because of it. Also, there are a lot of studies coming out recently that male fertility is 1/2 of what it was just a generation ago (we make 1/2 as much sperm as we used to). No one know why yet, they assume it's environmental or diet related.
- raldi 9y ago
  Also, ever-easier access to ever-better contraception means people get married later in life and are able to put off having children until they're ready.
wyager 9y ago
Male fertility rates have fallen drastically. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/sperm-counts-declining-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/sperm-counts-declining... Male testosterone production has been decreasing as well, at a population level. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17062768 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17062768 Also interesting to note that medical academia has been gradually lowering the requirements for what is considered a healthy testosterone concentration. Minimal acceptable bioavailable testosterone for a healthy young man used to be considered on the order of 500ng/dL, now it’s generally considered around 300ng/dL.
raldi 9y ago
I think for all of human history, many couples struggling with infertility would have given anything to have children, but until very recently (first for scientific reasons, and then for economic ones) there was nothing they could do. Now, the tech has gotten good enough, and the price -- while still out of reach for many -- is affordable for an increasingly large segment of the population. TLDR: It's not being driven by an increase in demand, but rather an increase in supply.
gaius 9y ago
Is the rate of fertility problems increasing? And why? With nearly 8 billion people on the planet, the answer to that is a resounding NO. Go and look at the charts...
- rincebrain 9y ago
  The number of people increasing does not preclude there being more fertility problems in general - in fact, given that we have more technology available to mitigate fertility problems, but not to select against them in the next generation, I would even expect the percentage of people with fertility issues to be rising, absent any other pressure, since those people now have a higher likelihood of being able to reproduce.

by spraak 9y ago

Kluny 9y ago

It's probably because women are waiting longer to have children and it's harder for older women to become pregnant.

ereyes01 9y ago

Maybe not in this particular article/thread, but it's been widely discussed how starting a family can be disruptive to a woman's career and professional development. The reasons it's disruptive could be due to companies / culture in general not being flexible and accommodating enough to motherhood. Taking time off from your career tends to be a very costly proposition in our current time. For these reasons, there's lots of pressure to delay starting a family, and it's no surprise that IVF has seen increased demand. Some companies (i.e. Facebook) even provide their female employees a benefit that covers freezing their eggs. This is somewhat controversial, as some would argue that Facebook (and other companies, and perhaps our culture in general) should instead focus on reducing the professional cost of starting a family. Therefore, these findings about growing human eggs could have great significance. I have friends grappling with this issue right now, so I understand how this discovery could be a great help to them. I hope that provides some useful context...

CryptoPunk 9y ago
>>The reasons it's disruptive could be due to companies / culture in general not being flexible and accommodating enough to motherhood. That's a pretty critical view of things. I think a more objective view is that motherhood is costly for the mother in time and attention, and generally reduces the time and effort she puts into her career. Whether people operating in the business world should be encouraged or forced to give preferential treatment to mothers so that motherhood doesn't become a career disadvantage is an open question. One could argue it would be unfair to those women who choose to forego or forestall motherhood to dedicate more time to their careers.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>focus on reducing the professional cost of starting a family // Few professions are important enough to spare a passing thought over compared to the importance of raising children IMO. I mean Facebook? Do people working there, for example, really think social data mining for advertising is important in some way? Sure, income is important, but people don't say they want to protect their income, they always talk about career progression (which is conceptually unrelated). We've got plenty of people, making ways for people to sacrifice everything to a job without failing to reproduce seems pretty counter to any need.
- namelost 9y ago
  This is part of a deeper problem in certain parts of America whereby one's personal value is determined entirely by one's net worth (and perhaps also education).
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    That’s not an American problem - it’s everywhere.
    - namelost 9y ago
      There are many parts of the world, even parts of America, where for a single woman or married couple to choose to remain childless in the pursuit of wealth would lower their social value more than the extra wealth would increase it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jedberg 9y ago

People are waiting a lot longer. I'm 40 and just had my second kid a few months ago. Our first is only 3. Only a generation ago the median age of birth was like 23 and now it's 27 or so, but that doesn't account for the edge cases. A lot of women have careers now that they didn't have a generation ago and delay childbirth because of it. Also, there are a lot of studies coming out recently that male fertility is 1/2 of what it was just a generation ago (we make 1/2 as much sperm as we used to). No one know why yet, they assume it's environmental or diet related.

raldi 9y ago
Also, ever-easier access to ever-better contraception means people get married later in life and are able to put off having children until they're ready.

wyager 9y ago

Male fertility rates have fallen drastically. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/sperm-counts-declining-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/sperm-counts-declining... Male testosterone production has been decreasing as well, at a population level. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17062768 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17062768 Also interesting to note that medical academia has been gradually lowering the requirements for what is considered a healthy testosterone concentration. Minimal acceptable bioavailable testosterone for a healthy young man used to be considered on the order of 500ng/dL, now it’s generally considered around 300ng/dL.

raldi 9y ago

I think for all of human history, many couples struggling with infertility would have given anything to have children, but until very recently (first for scientific reasons, and then for economic ones) there was nothing they could do. Now, the tech has gotten good enough, and the price -- while still out of reach for many -- is affordable for an increasingly large segment of the population. TLDR: It's not being driven by an increase in demand, but rather an increase in supply.

gaius 9y ago

Is the rate of fertility problems increasing? And why? With nearly 8 billion people on the planet, the answer to that is a resounding NO. Go and look at the charts...

rincebrain 9y ago
The number of people increasing does not preclude there being more fertility problems in general - in fact, given that we have more technology available to mitigate fertility problems, but not to select against them in the next generation, I would even expect the percentage of people with fertility issues to be rising, absent any other pressure, since those people now have a higher likelihood of being able to reproduce.