Dr. Werlin's Fertility World

This is one of my favorite times of the year - the opportunity to see the proud faces of Coastal's patients and their little ones. Only, this time some of those faces are painted and our Coastal family and friends are wearing the latest pirate, princess or superhero gear.

Can't wait to see you there this Saturday!

Saturday
October 25, 2008
1:00 pm - 4:30 pm

LOCATION:
Coastal Fertility
Medical Center
4900 Barranca Pkwy
Irvine, CA 92604

Coastal Fertility Medical Center's
17th Annual Miracle Babies Halloween Reunion

- Food & refreshments will be served.
- Bring your camera:
- Picnic style: Bring your beach chairs
- Highlights include: Face Painting, Costume Contest & Karaoke

We'd like to invite our patients, friends and associates to support National Infertility Awareness Week, October 19-25, 2008 (sponsored by RESOLVE). The theme of this year's Awareness week is "Take Charge of Your Fertility."And through education, we're hoping to empower our patients with some of the vital information needed to navigate the family building journey.

My fellow reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Minoos Hosseinzadeh will be speaking to a local RESOLVE event, the 2008 Fall Family Building Symposium on Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 1 p.m. at California State University, Long Beach.

We invite you to join the session and hear the latest on using embryo adoption as an alternative family building option. The workshop explains medical screening for potential embryo donors, the recipient medical evaluation, medical considerations for donors and recipients, and the transfer procedure; as well as provides recent statistics about embryo donation success rates.

Location:
The Pointe (Yellow Handrails)
California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90840

For more information on the Symposium, please visit www.resolve.org
Or http://www.resolve.org/site/Calendar/237296945?view=Detail&id=21921&whence=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.resolve.org%2Fsite%2FPageServer%3Fpagename%3DCalendar

I am very excited to announce that I have joined Fertile Hope’s Sharing Hope Program. Fertile Hope is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing reproductive information and support to cancer patients and survivors whose medical treatments present the risk of infertility. As a part of the Sharing Hope Program Coastal Fertility will help women diagnosed with certain types of cancer to preserve their fertility.

The Sharing Hope program matches women with partnering doctors, and together they help to reduce the cost of fertility preservation methods such as embryo freezing and egg freezing treatments Cancer survivors have already faced a tough battle with their disease. Through this program, we want to support their dreams of parenthood and help make their journey as smooth as possible.
To learn more about Fertile Hope and the Sharing Hope Program, please visit http://www.fertilehope.org/

Happy Birthday IVF.

Friday, July 25th marks an important milestone: the 30th anniversary of the birth of Louise Brown, who was born in England, and is recognized as the world’s first baby to be born with the aid of in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

Five years later, in 1982, the treatment made its way to the United States with the first set of twins conceived via IVF. Today, recent statistics indicate that more than three million IVF babies have been born worldwide since Louise Brown. The success rates continue to rise with conception rates now in the double digits.

We have seen the integration of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to the IVF process to screen for chromosomal abnormalities and genetic diseases. Researchers are continuing to develop and refine treatments to aid couples in achieving their dreams of parenthood. Here’s to another successful 30 years!

For more information, please view the following article on Yahoo! http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainhealthfertility

An article in the UK newspaper The Telegraph discussed the issue of the use of frozen embryos for IVF treatments.

According to the article, the study analyzed more than 1,200 children born from a frozen embryo transfer over a ten-year span, finding that the babies born from frozen embryos had a higher birth weight and had no increased risk of congenital malformations.

Additional details on the study, as discussed in the article, are listed below by Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent, at the annual meeting of ESHRE in Barcelona.
Babies from frozen embryos are born heavier than those from fresh embryos
Infants born from embryos which were frozen and then thawed before being implanted into a woman had a higher birth weight and were less likely to suffer abnormalities.
Fewer of the children were also twins or triplets.
Multiple births are known to increase the risk of complications as well as the danger to the mother.
More than 1,200 children born between 1995 and 2006 after frozen embryo replacement (FER) were studied and compared to 17,857 children born from "fresh" embryos.
Freezing embryos allows couples to have several In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment cycles from the same egg collection, reducing the number of times that the ovaries are stimulated.
The eggs are placed in the womb three to five days after ovulation in exactly the same way as fresh embryos.
Multiple births accounted for 27.3 per cent of children born from fresh embryos, compared with 14.2 per cent when frozen embryos were used.
Babies from frozen embryos were on average 200 grams heavier on birth than those from fresh embryos, the findings presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre) in Barcelona.
The proportion of low birth weight and pre-term FER children was significantly lower.
Dr Anja Pinborg, from the Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet, who led the study, said: "Most encouragingly, we found no increased risk of congenital malformations in the FER group; the rate in this group was 7.1 per cent compared to 8.8 per cent where fresh embryos had been used.
"We think the reason for the differences is probably positive selection of the embryos for frozen embryo replacement.
"Only the very top quality embryos survive the freezing and thawing process.
"And you only get pregnancies in patients with lots of good embryos to freeze."
Story from Telegraph News:
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2267497/Frozen-embryos-better-than-fresh%2C-study-shows.html

This Sunday is a special day as it marks the 100th Anniversary of Father’s Day. To all the fathers and soon-to-be dads, we honor you.

We hope you enjoy your day!

A recent article posted on CBS News discussed the occurrence of multiples for couples who use In Vitro Fertilization, and both the joys and challenges of having multiple children in a single pregnancy. In addition, the article and broadcast story, “Moms of Multiples,” discussed the increase in high multiple births, which occurred during the mid-80s and 90s. IVF, as is necessary with any other technology, has had to be refined in order to create the best results. Whereas originally doctors would implant several embryos in hopes of one developing into a healthy baby, now science has evolved enough where doctors are able to implant fewer embryos with a higher success rate. Today, the success rate for IVF is much higher and a total of 3 million babies have been successfully born via the treatment.


During my 20-plus years as a fertility specialist, I have personally seen these changes, and have been fortunate to be a part of several research studies that are advancing reproductive medicine. At last year’s ASRM conference, we presented data describing the use of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to pick normal embryos. This enabled us to be able to put fewer embyos back in and thus lower the likelihood of multi-fetal gestation


To read the complete story, please follow this link http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/11/sunday/main4086169.shtml?source=search_story

Happy (early) Mother’s Day! Today I was thinking about this special holiday, and I wanted to share a few fun Mother’s Day facts I uncovered:

· Did you know the first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1907 and was established by Anna Marie Jarvis? Jarvis devoted her life to establishing Mother's Day as a national after her mother’s death in 1905.

· Did you know that Mother’s Day holidays are also observed in several other countries? "Mothering Sunday" is celebrated in the UK and Ireland on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

· Did you know in China most names begin with a character signifying mother which honors the maternal heritage? Every day is a day to celebrate your mother!

I would like to also extend my gratitude to mothers nationwide – especially those whom I have had the pleasure of working with. You all encompass a loving and caring nature. This holiday reminds my team and me of why we are in the business we love – to help others achieve the gift of motherhood.

Recently I received a wonderful email from former patient, Kasey Russell. She wanted to share her thanks to the team at Coastal Fertility. Kasey first came to me in 2002 and since then I have helped her family to grow – she is currently pregnant with her third child. It is always a pleasure to hear from my patients and I wanted to share what she wrote. I encourage any other former/current Coastal Fertility patients to comment or send me an email.

After a year of trying on my own I had a tube removed and was told to seek fertility treatments. I went to Dr. Werlin for help. I have been a patient of Dr. Werlin's twice. The first time was in 2002 and I became pregnant on our first round and gave birth to a beautiful healthy little girl, the second time was in 2005 and again gave birth to a beautiful healthy little girl in 2006. Since then we have had a tubal pregnancy in September of 2007 which Dr. Werlin was there for me. Low and behold, with only one tub and not a very good one at that I came up pregnant again in March (this year). My husband and I were nervous to get excited at first knowing my history, but I am now 11 weeks pregnant with baby #3 and everything looks good. Dr. Werlin is the best and I miss his special care that I received during my first two pregnancies. I definitely have two miracle babies, and now one on the way.

Never give up hope! Thanks Werl!!!

I recently attended the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society's (PCRS) annual conference in Palm Springs, Calif. There were two discussions that peaked my interest, both of which I would like to share with my readers.

First, it appears that acupuncture does play a role in improving In Vitro success. Over the years there have been studies exploring the connection between acupuncture and fertility, of which I have found very insightful. Stronger data now suggests that acupuncture has been beneficial in improving fertility. In my practice, when called for, we currently utilize acupuncturists in association with fertility treatments.

Secondly, on the PGD front, it appears that the technology is advancing to a point where we may be able to, in the near future, look at all 23(24) chromosomes in a single cell. As you know, the present technology for PGD allows us to safely look 12 chromosomes. However, these 12 chromosomes, either individually or in some combination, do make up 85% of all the chromosomal abnormalities that occur. If the technology allows us to evaluate 23(24) chromosomes, this technique will be even more beneficial.

All in all, it was a very successful meeting.