The Uterus Update 🗞️
Placentas that can fake being ill, the cause of morning sickness - and rat selfies!
Well, hello.
It’s reproductive health round-up week here at Life, Almost. For new subscribers (👋) I do one of these a month. I keep an eye out for interesting developments and findings relevant to fertility, pregnancy, and women’s health, and break them all down here for you, in one scroll-able update.
Before we get into it, I want to let you know that on Wednesday February 28th, I’ll be speaking about my book, pregnancy, motherhood, and channelling grief into writing, alongside Tamarin Norwood, the author of a beautiful memoir The Song Of The Whole Wide World: On Grief, Motherhood, and Poetry, about finding out that the baby she was carrying would not live (it’s published today). There’ll be a Q&A and book signing after.
If you’re in London, or thereabouts, it would be lovely to see you. It’s happening at Waterstones Gower Street and tickets are available here.
Right let’s get stuck in.
In the news…
The first human trials using an ‘artificial womb’ to treat extremely premature babies could start later this year – if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives its approval. Researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who’ve pioneered this ‘biobag’ technology – essentially a fluid-filled sac that mimics amniotic fluid – presented their arguments to the FDA’s Pediatric Advisory Committee back in September as to how the first clinical trials in humans could be safely and ethically conducted. The researchers’ proposal is that this technology could be used to save a baby’s life if someone goes into labour before 24 weeks, in the 22-24-week ‘greyzone’ of viability. A point at which, currently, survival rates are low and, often, there is little doctors can do. (The Times)
A new, free counselling service for Black and Black Mixed-Heritage women and birthing people launched this month, through a partnership between the baby loss charity Tommy’s, Five X More, which campaigns to reduce disparities in Black maternal outcomes, and Petals, which provides specialist pregnancy loss counselling. (Tommy’s)
A blood test has been approved that could speed up the diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which can be an underlying reason for infertility, and which previously required an ultrasound to be confirmed. (Mail+)
A higher proportion of miscarriages may be down to chromosomal abnormalities than previously thought, according to a new study that used a different technique to analyse the DNA from miscarried pregnancies. It’s taken me a while to get my head around this story – partly because it’s genetics, which always makes my head spin, and also because I need to work out whether I have to update a section of my book – but, essentially, this new analysis of 1,745 miscarried pregnancies, published in Nature Medicine, suggests that chromosomal abnormalities might account for something like 68 per cent of all miscarriages, rather than 50 per cent, as is more commonly suggested by previous research. Using the conventional method – karyotyping – researchers found that, as expected, around half of losses had chromosomal abnormalities present. But when they analysed a random subset of 94 samples – some ‘normal’ some ‘abnormal’ – using the newer genome sequencing technique, known as haplarithmisis, they picked up more errors than before, which would make it more like two-thirds that are attributable to a chromosomal issue. The caveat to this study is, as the researchers themselves point out, 94 is not a very big sample size from which to draw firm conclusions. But, if it stands up, it could be that this newer technique one day offers an alternative to the standard karyotyping procedure, which involves multiplying cells in a lab (tissue culturing) and is therefore error-prone and often inconclusive. (New Scientist/Nature Medicine)
Aid workers estimate that the number of miscarriages has increased by 300 per cent in Gaza. (Jezebel)
Placenta cells ‘dress up’ as fake viruses to protect embryos from potential infections, new research suggests. By ‘faking’ an infection that triggers a particular – milder – kind of immune response, the cells appear to stop the body’s more OTT immune-system defences that would otherwise kick in should there be a viral infection. Placentas are really clever. We should probably know more about them. (Quanta magazine – H/T
of Science Safari, for this one)Concerned by rising numbers of police investigations following pregnancy loss, the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has issued new guidance to doctors saying they do not have to report women to police if they suspect them of ending their pregnancy illegally – that this is ‘never’ in the public interest. (BBC)
This is an accessible – and interesting – listen on emerging research into the vaginal microbiome. (Guardian Science Weekly)
Two new studies suggest depression during or after pregnancy increases risk of suicide, even years later. (New York Times/ JAMA Network Open/BMJ)
Researchers have identified the hormone GDF15 as the likely main cause of hyperemesis gravidarum (extreme morning sickness). How sick someone feels in pregnancy seems to be determined by how much GDF15 is produced by the growing foetus – and how much they’ve been exposed to the hormone pre-pregnancy. Low levels of GDF15 are produced in the body outside of pregnancy, but some women with a particular genetic variant seem to make a lot less of it, making them much more sensitive to the effects in pregnancy. It could be, the researchers suggest, that finding safe ways to slowly introduce GDF15 to someone’s system prior to pregnancy could prevent extreme vomiting and nausea. (The Times/Nature)
And finally….
Rats love taking selfies too! 🐁
Until next week,
Thanks for sharing all this. I had two stillborn babies many years ago, the life navigation never goes away! But it does get slightly easier. The miscarriage research is Interesting. Both my daughters had genetic/chromosomal abnormalities, I think I should have miscarried earlier but maybe I wanted them to stay too much and held on!
I really appreciate your writing about this difficult topic. I always found it so isolating, even after I became a therapist. I shared my only writing about it last month, after nearly 20 years not being able to find the words 💛