Exposure to maternal obesity before and/or throughout pregnancy may increase the risk of obesity and insulin resistance in the offspring in childhood and adult life, therefore, resulting in its transmission into subsequent generations. We have previously shown that exposure to maternal obesity around the time of conception alone resulted in increased adiposity in female lambs. Changes in the ab...

Based on evolutionary theory, Trivers & Willard (TW) predicted the existence of mechanisms that lead parents with high levels of resources to bias offspring sex composition to favor sons and parents with low levels of resources to favor daughters. This hypothesis has been tested in samples of wealthy individuals but with mixed results. Here, I argue that both sample selection due to a high numb...

CONTEXT Sperm donation is an increasingly common practice for achieving pregnancy in the absence of a male partner or when fertility is problematic. The unintended consequence in which genetic diseases are unwittingly transmitted to offspring is an underrecognized public health issue not previously prioritized by US Food and Drug Administration guidelines. OBJECTIVE To report the clinical cir...

In species that live in one-male groups, resident males monopolize access to a group of females and are assumed to have higher reproductive success than bachelors. We tested this assumption using genetic, demographic, and behavioral data from 8 groups of wild blue monkeys observed over 10 years to quantify reproduction by residents and bachelors and compare the success of the two tactics. We us...

OBJECTIVE To provide an in-depth analysis of offspring attitudes toward their means of conception and the practice of sperm donation in the United States. DESIGN Survey-based study using a 46-item questionnaire. PATIENT(S) Eighty-five adult offspring of sperm donation. INTERVENTION(S) Participants were recruited through an Internet-based support group for adults conceived through sperm do...

BACKGROUND This study investigates the new phenomenon of parents of donor offspring searching for and contacting their child's 'donor siblings' (i.e. donor offspring conceived by the same donor) and donor. METHODS Online questionnaires were completed by 791 parents (39% lone-mother, 35% lesbian-couple, 21% heterosexual-couple, 5% non-specified) recruited via the Donor Sibling Registry; a US-b...

Over the past years, a growing number of countries have legislated open-identity donation, in which donor-conceived offspring are given access to the donor's identity once the child has reached maturity. It is held that donor anonymity creates identity problems for such children similar to the "genealogical bewilderment" described within the adoption context. The study of the social and psychol...

in western countries we assist at the paradox that fertility is socially discouraged by a mindset that depicts fertility as a resource to exploit as late as possible. so, couples have high expectative about the advantages of delayed parenthood, but they are scarcely informed about its risks. scientific data suggests to anticipate the first pregnancy, but social pressures impose to wait, though ...

The rate of multiple births is substantially elevated in women who have had assisted reproduction treatment (ART; approximately 26%) compared to the general population ( approximately 1%), and these offspring are usually included in twin studies. Several studies have attempted to identify possible consequences of undergoing ART on the subsequent offspring. However, most studies have only includ...

Subzonal injection of spermatozoa (SUZI) was one of the first micromanipulation techniques efficient in treating male factor infertility and unexplained in-vitro fertilization failures. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the in-vitro development of embryos conceived by SUZI, the obstetric outcome, the rate of congenital malformations and subsequent follow-up in children. Fifty-...