The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. This book explores the experiences of some of the pioneering users of social egg freezing technology in the UK and the USA.
Delivers current knowledge from global experts at the forefront of fertility and ART healthcare The first publication of its kind, this book on fertility and assisted reproductive technology (ART) is a globally focused, authoritative guide to state-of-the-art information about modern fertility and ART healthcare. Written for clinicians, public health officials, women’s health experts, scientists, students, scholars, and other interested individuals, the book encompasses theoretical, research, policy, and clinical practice aspects of fertility and ART healthcare. The book features the diverse contributions of multidisciplinary researchers, scholars, and clinicians from eight countries who explore contemporary health care perspectives regarding individuals and families dealing with infertility and fertility challenges including such advanced technologies as in-vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, and oocyte preservation. The book addresses theoretical underpinnings of fertility and ART healthcare including new ways of conceptualizing research and theoretical concepts. Practical aspects involved with administering and treating the many women and men whose lives are affected by fertility challenges are illuminated. Complex policy concerns resulting from the rapid advances in fertility and ART are considered. The health care needs of those seeking fertility evaluation and treatment including access to care locally and globally are examined in depth. The book also includes discussions about novel approaches and emerging populations in fertility and ART healthcare that expand the scope of care. Thought-provoking case examples from contemporary care practices will help the reader to synthesize information. Key Features: Delivers thought provoking ART research and practice issues for health care clinicians, scholars, and scientists Synthesizes evolving theory, research, clinical practice, and public policy concerns Addresses complex considerations within the practice and delivery of fertility and ART services Written by international thought leaders and emerging scholars on the forefront of ART technologies and other issues Includes case study exemplars to stimulate critical thinking and transform discussion about modern fertility and ART care
Human biological fertility was considered a important issue to anthropologists and colonial administrators in the first part of the 20th century, as a dramatic decline in population was observed in many regions. However, the total demise of Melanesian populations predicted by some never happened; on the contrary, a rapid population increase took place for the second part of the 20th century. This volume explores relationships between human fertility and reproduction, subsistence systems, the symbolic use of ideas of fertility and reproduction in linking landscape to individuals and populations, in Melanesian societies, past and present. It thus offers an important contribution to our understanding of the implications of social and economic change for reproduction and fertility in the broadest sense.
These essays examine the global impact of infertility as a major reproductive health issue, one that has profoundly affected the lives of countless women and men. The contributors address a range of topics including how the deeply gendered nature of infertility sets the blame on women's shoulders.
In 1999, the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford held a workshop on the social dynamics of human reproduction. This volume contains 12 papers from scholars in Britain and the U.S. that were originally presented at that workshop. Topics include, for example, motherhood among young prostitutes in Thailand, the meaning of children in Hong Kong, and the reproductive health of refugees. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is available to two-thirds of the world's population, and world-class experts, representing research from 18 different countries, have contributed to this groundbreaking textbook, detailing the techniques and philosophies behind medical procedures of infertility and assisted reproduction. This is one of the most rapidly changing and hotly debated fields in medicine. Different countries have different restrictions on the research techniques that can be applied to this field, and, therefore, experts from around the world bring varied and unique authorities to different subjects in reproductive technology. Encompassing the latest research into the physiology of reproduction, infertility evaluation and treatment, and assisted reproduction, it concludes with perspectives on the ethical dilemmas faced by clinicians and professionals. This book will be the definitive resource for those working in the areas of reproductive medicine world wide.
Welcomed as liberation and dismissed as exploitation, egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) has rapidly become one of the most widely-discussed and influential new reproductive technologies of this century. In Freezing Fertility, Lucy van de Wiel takes us inside the world of fertility preservation—with its egg freezing parties, contested age limits, proactive anticipations and equity investments—and shows how the popularization of egg freezing has profound consequences for the way in which female fertility and reproductive aging are understood, commercialized and politicized. Beyond an individual reproductive choice for people who may want to have children later in life, Freezing Fertility explores how the rise of egg freezing also reveals broader cultural, political and economic negotiations about reproductive politics, gender inequities, age normativities and the financialization of healthcare. Van de Wiel investigates these issues by analyzing a wide range of sources—varying from sparkly online platforms to heart-breaking court cases and intimate autobiographical accounts—that are emblematic of each stage of the egg freezing procedure. By following the egg’s journey, Freezing Fertility examines how contemporary egg freezing practices both reflect broader social, regulatory and economic power asymmetries and repoliticize fertility and aging in ways that affect the public at large. In doing so, the book explores how the possibility of egg freezing shifts our relation to the beginning and end of life.
A critical analysis of white, working class North Americans’ motivations and experiences when traveling to Central Europe for donor egg IVF Each year, more and more Americans travel out of the country seeking low cost medical treatments abroad, including fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). As the lower middle classes of the United States have been priced out of an expensive privatized “baby business,” the Czech Republic has emerged as a central hub of fertility tourism, offering a plentitude of blonde-haired, blue-eyed egg donors at a fraction of the price. Fertility Holidays presents a critical analysis of white, working class North Americans’ motivations and experiences when traveling to Central Europe for donor egg IVF. Within this diaspora, patients become consumers, urged on by the representation of a white Europe and an empathetic health care system, which seems nonexistent at home. As the volume traces these American fertility journeys halfway around the world, it uncovers layers of contradiction embedded in global reproductive medicine. Speier reveals the extent to which reproductive travel heightens the hope ingrained in reproductive technologies, especially when the procedures are framed as “holidays.” The pitch of combining a vacation with their treatment promises couples a stress-free IVF cycle; yet, in truth, they may become tangled in fraught situations as they endure an emotionally wrought cycle of IVF in a strange place. Offering an intimate, first-hand account of North Americans’ journeys to the Czech Republic for IVF, Fertility Holidays exposes reproductive travel as a form of consumption which is motivated by complex layers of desire for white babies, a European vacation, better health care, and technological success.
From contraception to cloning and pregnancy to populations, reproduction presents urgent challenges today. This field-defining history synthesizes a vast amount of scholarship to take the long view. Spanning from antiquity to the present day, the book focuses on the Mediterranean, western Europe, North America and their empires. It combines history of science, technology and medicine with social, cultural and demographic accounts. Ranging from the most intimate experiences to planetary policy, it tells new stories and revises received ideas. An international team of scholars asks how modern 'reproduction' - an abstract process of perpetuating living organisms - replaced the old 'generation' - the active making of humans and beasts, plants and even minerals. Striking illustrations invite readers to explore artefacts, from an ancient Egyptian fertility figurine to the announcement of the first test-tube baby. Authoritative and accessible, Reproduction offers students and non-specialists an essential starting point and sets fresh agendas for research.