Monday 8 December 2008

The new Bubzilla Baby Sling comes to twins-store


We are so pleased to be one of the first to offer the brand new Bubzilla Baby Sling, so much to say about this - not sure where to start, but have a look at the twins-store for more info.

The new Bubzilla Baby Sling is made from 100% soft cottondrill to guarantee quality and durability, giving you 'hands free' convenience without ever compromising the safety or comfort of your baby. Wearing your baby will reduce crying, wind and colic as it increases cardiac output and gentle assisits in toning baby's muscles, which in turn increases circulation and promotes better respiratory function and digestion.

Sunday 7 December 2008

rgu - Mum of triplets struggles through to graduate

Iboro Edem (29), who has successfully completed her course despite giving birth to triplets only four months ago, will graduate at 2.30pm on Thursday 4 December with an MSc in International Marketing from the Robert Gordon University

Iboro, from Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria, originally studied Communication Arts and worked as a Client Service Executive at LTC-JWT Advertising until 2005 when she joined Virgin Nigeria Airways as a Marketing Coordinator, responsible for branding and marketing communication. Iboro said, "I wanted to add more value to my CV and pursue new challenging responsibilities in multinational companies, so enrolled for the Masters at the Robert Gordon University."

Iboro and her husband Emmanuel Jude had to put all their savings towards her studies. Indeed, they were both accepted to study in the UK, but because they did not have enough finances to study simultaneously, he had to defer his offer while he continued to work in Nigeria to support her.

Five months before Iboro began the course in September last year, she sadly suffered a miscarriage when she was 20 weeks pregnant. She continues, "It was a very traumatic period for us." However, after one of her husband’s visits to her in November 2007, Iboro found out she was pregnant again.

Early in her pregnancy she went for a scan and discovered she was expecting triplets. She continues, "It was really shocking because there is no history of multiple births in either of our families. However, we accepted it as God's blessing for our previous loss."

Iboro continues, "It was not easy attending classes and carrying so much weight around. Sitting up to study and doing my coursework was very uncomfortable. I could not put in as much effort as I would have liked to and had to seek assistance from friends and lecturers to help with such things as borrowing heavy books from the library. I had to deal with fatigue, swollen feet, and pelvic pain from the weight. It was a relief after the second semester since I did not have to go out every day to attend lectures and could work on my dissertation from home."

At 34 weeks Iboro had to be admitted to hospital for close monitoring in case she went into early labour, with the target date for an elective c-section at 36 weeks so that the babies would be able to survive without neonatal care. At 35 weeks and six days, on 24 July, Iboro gave birth to three healthy baby boys Nathaniel, Johnathan and Ethan.

Iboro's mum came over to Aberdeen to help with the babies and stayed so that Iboro could complete her dissertation. She continues, "Being a go-getter, I just had to keep going with my dissertation even though I knew I was straining my health and was not giving the babies all the attention they required. I had the option of deferring but I chose to continue and, barely a month after giving birth, I returned to complete my studies. Even though the babies would be more settled when they are a few months older, my mum would not be here to help out and that would mean incurring expenses on child care.

"There were days when I barely wrote a sentence because I was shuttling from one baby to the other; however I made sure that I worked every other day. Most times, while my mum held two babies, I held one with one arm while typing my dissertation with the other!

"I was given an extension for my dissertation submission and was determined to meet this deadline. The babies needed to feed every three hours and just when we managed to feed the last one, we realised it was almost time for the next feed. So, I had to eat, scribble some words, and prepare to feed them again. I hardly ever had three hours straight sleep at night, and of course there was hardly any sleep during the day.

Regardless of how hectic it's been, studying here has been really worthwhile. Meeting people from different parts of the world and learning more about their cultures has been quite an experience. I thank my friends and lecturers, who were very helpful and supportive, without whom things would have been almost impossible. I thank God, my darling husband, our triplets, my family and in-laws for their love and support."

triplets products

Twin Faith still very ill in hospital

A BABY girl remained seriously ill in hospital last night after her conjoined twin died following emergency surgery to separate them.

Hope Williams died on Tuesday night after “one of the most complex and challenging operations” ever faced by medical staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London. Surgeons have given her sister Faith a 50-50 chance of survival, and she is still in a stable condition in intensive care.

A Great Ormond Street spokeswoman said: “Faith Williams is a very sick little girl. Great Ormond Street Hospital is doing everything it can for her.”

The twins were joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel and had a shared liver but separate hearts.

The girls’ mother, 18-year-old Laura Williams, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, is Britain’s youngest mother to give birth to conjoined twins. The twins’ father, Aled, hails from Anglesey.

Medical staff warned Mrs Williams and her 28-year-old husband that their babies might not survive after a 12-week scan revealed the problem but they refused to consider a termination.

inthenews - Caesarean birth 'increases asthma risk'

Children born by caesarean section are more prone to asthma than those delivered naturally, research claims.

A report published in the journal Thorax today found that by the time children were eight years old those who had been born by caesarean section were 80 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with the respiratory condition.

In a survey of almost 3,000 children, the connection between caesareans and asthma was even stronger for the nine per cent of children with two allergic parents.

They were almost three times more likely to be asthmatic by the time they were eight, compared with children whose parents were not allergic, who were around 36 per cent more likely to have this diagnosis.

The authors of today's report claim that the link between caesarean sections and an increase of asthma may lie in the timing of the priming of the immune system, as caesarean delivery delays exposure to microbes.

"The increased rate of caesarean section is partly due to maternal demand without medical reason," they claim.

"In this situation the mother should be informed of the risk of asthma for her child, especially when the parents have a history of allergy or asthma."

Monday 24 November 2008

The New Mountain Buggy Swift compact buggy


The New Mountain Buggy Urban Double 2008 buggy has just get even better, the buggy has always been a favorite with mums and dads of twins, it’s a roomy yet narrow double buggy at just 74cm wide fits through most doors yet has plenty of space for your growing children.
The new MBUD 2008 is suitable from birth with the multi reclining seats adjusting to near flat and the new model now has an aduster bulit into the harnesh for smaller babies - great from twins! or as with all the range can be used with Mountain Buggy Carry Cots to make a twin pram.
Comes complete with a free Mountain Buggy Twin Storm cover, with it’s front opening zip which can be rolled open, large shopping basket with pockets for bottles and keys and phone, a bottle carrier and a Mountain Buggy pump is included in our price.
The short wheelbase makes maneuvering easy, and as its so narrow helps when exiting doorways. The front swivel wheels option is excellent on busy streets & indoors and offers true ‘turn the buggy with just one finger’ .
By locking the front wheel to the fixed position, the Mountain Buggy Urban Double can handle the park, light jogging & off-road conditions with ease making this an all terrain buggy, and now with rear suspension to give even more comfort. The four large wheels give market leading stability in all conditions for safety, and with an adjustable handlebar to ensure optimum comfort for the parents while pushing.
Turn this buggy into a twin pram with optional carrycots available to suit one or two babies or two toddlers, details of carry cots can be found in our Buggy Accessories.
Mountain Buggy Urban Double 2008 offers -
All purpose High tensile aluminium frame
Upright to fully reclined seat positions
Rear wheel suspension for a smoother ride on any surface

Large storage basket with smaller storage pockets
Suitable from newborn
Quick release wheels
5-point safety harness
Foot operated brake
Easy one-step fold
Sunhood with viewing window
Water resistant, easy cleaning Hardwearing fabric
Full range of accessories
Free air pump and drink bottle holder
Made in New Zealand
Dimensions
Width 74 cms
Fold Size With Wheels 104 x 39.5 x 74 cms
Weight 16 kgs
Mountain Buggy reviews

Should you require further assistance, or wish to place a pre order for the new 2008 Mountain Buggy, please email customerservice@twins-store.co.uk

Tuesday 11 November 2008

times - Frozen IVF embryos produce healthier children, researchers claim


IVF produces healthier children when embryos are frozen and thawed before being transferred to the womb, according to new research.

Babies born from frozen IVF embryos are less likely to be born prematurely or underweight than are those conceived during fresh treatment cycles, three independent teams of scientists have found. One of the studies also recorded lower rates of stillbirth and early death among frozen-embryo babies.

The results, from researchers based in the United States, Australia and Finland, suggest that far from being riskier than conventional IVF, as is generally thought, cycles using frozen embryos may actually be safer.

The research is particularly significant because separate teams from three countries have reached the same conclusion, each using large samples including thousands of IVF cycles. A fourth team, from Denmark, also reported similar findings earlier in the year.

Scientists said the work would be important because women are increasingly encouraged to use just one fresh embryo during IVF, to guard against damaging twin and triplet births, and to freeze any that are left over for later use. It will dispel doubts about whether this policy trades the risks of multiple births for hazards associated with frozen embryos.

Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: “This all works to the advantage of single embryo transfer. It suggests it might be better from the point of view of a healthy child to go for frozen embryos, which is an integral part of the strategy. People shouldn’t be scared of frozen embryos.”

The studies, presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Francisco, do not explain why babies born from frozen embryos seem to do better, but there are several hypotheses.

When fresh embryos are used in treatment, women may still be under the influence of powerful hormonal drugs used to stimulate their ovaries into producing extra eggs, or the anaesthetics used during egg collection. Either of these may interfere with the endometrial lining of the womb, and thus with the formation of the placenta.

Another possibility is that as some frozen embryos generally fail to survive thawing, this effectively “weeds out” those that are of poor quality. A third possibility is that women who produce lots of good quality embryos are more likely to have frozen cycles, and also have a lower risk of complicated pregnancies.

“These findings are really quite interesting,” Dr Pacey said. “It kind of defies logic to a certain extent. It seems to be an issue with the formation of the placenta, but how it has an effect isn’t known.

“This may be a bit of biology that has escaped most people. The assumption has always been that if the endometrium [the womb lining] is thick, it’s functional. In an IVF cycle, the endometrium looks normal on ultrasound, but perhaps there is something subtle going on.”

Despite their apparent health benefits, however, frozen IVF cycles are unlikely to supplant fresh ones as the routine option because they have a lower success rate. In Britain, 24.4 per cent of fresh cycles lead to a live birth, compared to 17.4 per cent of frozen cycles. There were 33,916 fresh cycles performed in 2006, and 7,911 frozen cycles.

“Frozen embryo transfers are not as successful as fresh ones in terms of getting a pregnancy,” Dr Pacey said. “So it may be that we have to balance the health of children against chances of success."

The first of the new studies, led by Suleena Kansal Kalra, of the University of Pennsylvania, compared 4,796 frozen cycles to 10,992 fresh cycles in which surplus embryos were available for freezing.

For singleton babies, fresh cycles were 50 per cent more likely than frozen ones to lead to low birth weight, and 10 per cent more likely to lead to premature birth. For twins, both risks were 25 per cent higher for fresh embryos than for frozen.

“Fresh embryo transfer is significantly associated with low birth weight and pre-term delivery in both singletons and twins,” Dr Kansal Kalra said.

In the Australian study, a team led by Professor Gordon Baker, of Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, compared all IVF singleton births in the city’s IVF units between 1991 and 2004. It found that 11 per cent of fresh embryo babies were born underweight and 12.3 per cent were born prematurely, compared to 6.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent of frozen embryo babies. The rate of perinatal death was also higher among the fresh group, at 1.87 per cent compared to 1.16 per cent.

The Finnish study, from Oulu University Hospital, compared 2,052 frozen embryo singleton babies to 2,343 born after fresh IVF cycles, and found those in the latter group were 35 per cent more likely to be born prematurely and 64 per cent more likely to be born underweight.

“Frozen embryo transfer singletons have better outcomes compared with singletons born after fresh embryo transfer, when examining birth weight or gestational age at birth,” the scientists said.

Some scientists believe that frozen embryo transfer may also have advantages for IVF success, even though its pregnancy rates have traditionally been lower than for fresh cycles. A new cryopreservation technique called vitrification allows more embryos to survive thawing than the older slow-freezing method on which these comparisons are based, and using it could help by allowing doctors to transfer embryos when the womb is most receptive.

Mandy Katz-Jaffe, of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said: “In a normal IVF cycle, patients have their embryo transfer while the uterus is still affected by the drugs they take to stimulate the ovaries. Vitrification allows the patient’s body to get rid of the drugs, and to grow a new endometrial lining.”

Tuesday 28 October 2008

reuters - New York woman gives birth to sextuplets

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York woman gave birth to sextuplets -- four boys and two girls -- earlier this month, the Mount Sinai Medical Center said on Monday.

But Digna and Victor Carpio, who also have a seven-year-old son, kept the birth as secret for three weeks as their babies fought to survive, the New York Daily News reported.

The babies -- identified at the moment as A, B, C, D, E and F -- were born by Caesarean section on October 6 during the 25th week of pregnancy, about three months early, each weighing between 1.5 and 2 pounds (680 and 900 grams), the newspaper reported.

"I've watched each of my babies fight so hard to survive," Carpio, 31, told the Daily News. "Life is beautiful and we're so thankful."

The Daily News reported that the Carpio sextuplets are only the second set born in New York City.

The paper said all six babies have now very good odds of survival. The couple plans to name them before they turn one-month-old.

The hospital confirmed the birth of the sextuplets but gave no further details. Multiple births are often the result of fertility treatment but it was not known whether the parents in this case had undergone such treatment.

nj.com - Report links estrogen levels to joint replacement surgery for women

Women who've had multiple births, are on hormone replacement therapy or underwent early puberty are at significantly higher risk for knee or hip replacement surgery, reports one of the largest studies to look at the relationship between reproductive issues and joint replacement surgery.

The findings, published on-line today ahead of print in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, are based on the experiences of some 1.3 million middle-aged women in the United Kingdom. Researchers at the University of Oxford tracked the women beginning in 1996 for about six years -- from around the age of 50 upwards -- to see if they had a knee or hip replaced due to osteoarthritis, an inflammatory joint disease.

A little more than 12,000 required a hip replacement by the end of the study period and just under 10,000 needed a knee replacement.

After quizzing the women on how when they had their first and last periods, how many children they had and whether they had used oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), several patterns emerged.

If a woman started menstruation before the age of 11, her probability of having both hip and knee replacement surgery increased between 9 and 15 percent, the researchers found. Every successive birth increased the risk of a hip replacement by 2 percent and a knee replacement by 8 percent.

While previous use of oral contraceptives did not appear to have an effect, current use of hormone replacement therapy boosted the chances of a hip replacement by 38 percent and of a knee replacement by 58 percent, the study found.

"These findings, along with other evidence, strongly suggest that the female sex hormone, estrogen, plays a role in the development of osteoarthritis of the hip and knee and the subsequent need for joint replacement," lead study author Bette Liu, of the University of Oxford, said in an e-mail to The Star-Ledger.

Estrogen is a female sex hormone that controls the reproductive cycle, and prepares the body for pregnancy.

Liu cautioned that the is evidence is not strong enough to recommend women change their use of HRT. In fact, the study suggests that such "non-biological factors" as women having greater access to health services if they are on hormonal therapy could be a factor in them having joint replacement surgery.

Overall, women have a higher incidence of osteoarthritis, in particular of the knee, when compared to men, the study notes.

Sunday 26 October 2008

timesonline - Best of Times, Worst of Times: Jackie Clune

Jackie Clune, 42, is an actress and stand-up comedian. Three years ago she gave birth to triplets: Frank, Thady and Orla. Here she recalls her shock at learning she was pregnant, and how she coped with their battle to survive

Jackie Clune

I didn’t ever think I was going to have children. It wasn’t something I yearned for. Then I met Richard and suddenly felt very settled. I had my first child, Saoirse, when I was 37 — a dream baby. Then, 11 months later, I fell pregnant again. Rather casually, I left the first scan until 14 weeks. When they told me there were three, I was absolutely horrified. But then this innate Pollyanna sensibility kicked in and I thought: “It’ll be all right.” I’m not a worrier, which is lucky, because I could have worried myself to death over this. I phoned the Twins and Multiple Birth Association. The first thing the woman said was “Congratulations, you’re a very special lady,” which appealed to the diva in me enormously.

I tottered into my appointment with a foetal medicine expert saying: “I’m having triplets! I’m special!” He then explained all the risks: placental failure, miscarriage, chromosomal abnormality, early labour and the possibility of them not surviving their first few weeks of life. After that I didn’t feel special any more: I felt like a cat producing a litter.

It took months to get my head around it. We didn’t have any money. We’d just bought a big house in north London and didn’t know how we were going to pay the mortgage. I was doing bits of stand-up, but our income was pretty low. By 20 weeks I looked full-term. By week 30 I was hiring mobility scooters at Asda.

I couldn’t get upstairs, couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t sleep. It was just atrocious. I begged to be delivered at 31 weeks because I couldn’t breathe.

I felt as though I had a family of labradors sitting on my chest, and it was scaring me. By the time I delivered at 35 weeks, my stomach measured 55 inches and I’d lost my sense of humour completely.

There were 20 people in the operating theatre for my caesarean. Boy number one, Frank, was whisked past me to the Nicu [neonatal intensive care unit]. Then his identical twin, Thady, disappeared. Their sister, Orla, the smallest, was fine, but by 10 o’clock that evening, 12 hours later, I still hadn’t seen the boys. I’d been told a day in the womb is equal to a week in an incubator, but it hadn’t hit me what that actually meant.

Finally, a paediatrician said the boys’ lungs were very immature and they’d both been intubated. When I eventually saw them they had wires everywhere and huge tubes stuck down their gullets. At first we were told they’d be there for a few hours, which turned into weeks. The doctors tried to take them off their respirators, but they couldn’t cope. It was days before I even touched them.

I’d shuffle round to deliver expressed breast milk, and when I came back Orla would be lying silently in the dark, which made me cry. It was as if she’d got used to the idea that she had to share me.

After a couple of weeks the boys’ nasal tubes were taken out for a few minutes to let me breast-feed. Then, one day when I’d just fed Thady, I turned round to pick up Frank and I heard a nurse behind me say: “Call a doctor!”

In those seconds Thady had stopped breathing and was changing colour from pink to blue. He was rushed away and I watched as if it were an episode of ER.

It felt like an out-of-body experience.

I’d felt guilty I hadn’t bonded with the boys, but in that instant I was so upset and shocked and shaken, the floodgates of maternal love opened. The Nicu was a place of extraordinary emotional extremes. One night, a mum lost a baby. I was awake and heard her screaming, and In the morning the cot next to Frank’s was empty. The other extreme was the baby born on Christmas Day weighing under 500 grams. He’d been there five months and I never once saw anyone visit. A nurse said: “Sometimes the mothers never come back.”

When I brought them home, people said: “How will you manage three newborns and a toddler?” But having a five-year-old and three three-year-olds is much harder. I’ve also done a few big runs: Mamma Mia! when they were seven months old, and now Billy Elliot, and I’m pathologically tired. The boys battle constantly. It can’t be easy having a brother who looks just like you and who has the toy you want. I’ve tried to be a bit existential about it, but you still want to brain them. When I was pregnant they were all crunched together, nose to cheek, elbows sticking in each other’s bums, and they’re still like that — they move in a huddle, battling like mad. Thady is the most difficult. He screams and cries and throws himself on the floor and it’s hard not to get wound up — he really does push you over the edge. But somehow I’m able to take a step back, because everything that happened informs my relationship with him. I remember the day I saw him nearly die and something in me goes: “It’s okay. He’s having a tantrum, but he’s here.”

Jackie Clune is now appearing as Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot: The Musical at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London

Monday 20 October 2008

bbc - Sextuplets born in Berlin clinic

The first German sextuplets for 20 years have been born in a clinic in the capital Berlin and are said to be in a stable condition.

Independent specialists said that the four girls and two boys, who each weigh between 800 and 900 grams (1.8-2lb), had a good chance of survival.

The first confirmed case of sextuplets surviving past infancy was recorded in Cape Town in South Africa in 1974.

They remain rare, occurring in about one out of 4.5m pregnancies.

Correspondents say multiple births have become more common with the advent of hormone therapies and in vitro fertilisation.

The babies were born prematurely at 27 weeks in Berlin's Charite clinic on Thursday, the clinic said on Monday.

The names of the parents were not being released immediately.

Thursday 2 October 2008

peterboroughtoday - Special day for city's three tiny miracles

THREE tiny miracles who made the headlines because of their 200 million to one odds were christened in a city church yesterday.
Identical triplets Gabriella, Olivia and Alessia were baptised on Sunday afternoon at St Peter and All Souls’ Church.

Proud mum and dad Carmela Testa (23) and fiance Richard Rees (23) were joined by dozens of their family and friends for the service in the Geneva Street Catholic church.

The triplets were born in Peterborough District Hospital on January 9 this year, seven weeks premature and weighed between 3lb 4 and 3lb 10oz at birth. After yesterday’s service, the parents, from Walkers Way, Bretton, spoke of the joy the three girls had brought them.

Carmela, a midwife at Peterborough District Hospital, said: “It has been a very hectic year. But we come from an extended family and our parents and other relatives have been a great support to us.”

And Richard, a vocational coach, admitted the three were “a real handful, but very enjoyable”.

He said: “Getting them all outside the house has been a bit of a challenge, and getting them to settle at night can be tough, but it has been an amazing nine months.”

Father David Jennings, who conducted the service, said: “This is a unique celebration for the parish. Identical triplets are a first for me, and I think for the parish and the city as well.”

Giving birth to naturally-conceived identical triplets is so rare, some experts have said it might happen in just one in 200 million cases.

The triplets caught the public’s imagination after The Evening Telegraph reported their birth in April, and they were featured in national newspapers and TV news reports.

telegraph - EU to offer 18 weeks fully paid maternity leave

The plan, to be announced by the EU's social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla, will impose six weeks of compulsory leave for new mothers after the birth, with the remaining 12 weeks to be split either before or after the child is born.

Under existing laws, introduced in 1992, the EU enforces a minimum of 14 weeks of fully paid leave.

Brussels sets the minimum length of maternity leave and pay, but member states may offer more generous provisions beyond this level.

Maternity leave periods range from 14 weeks in Germany and 16 weeks in France, the Netherlands and Spain, to 45 weeks in Bulgaria.

Sweden is particularly generous, offering a year of parental leave at full pay, which can be transferred to the father.

The UK also offers 52 weeks of maternity leave, 39 of which are paid, but at a rate of 90 per cent of their average pay for six weeks and a fixed sum of £117.18 a week for the other 33 weeks.

The government has broadly welcomed the commission's desire to increase the length of maternity leave.

But it is concerned that if accompanied by an increase in pay, the UK might be forced to reduce its allowable period of maternity leave.

An official with the British mission to the EU told The Daily Telegraph: "It would have a huge cost to the public purse, and we don't want to be weighing up the length of time mothers take off against what they are paid."

The Conservative Party has attacked the proposals as "ill-judged" and wants them reconsidered.

"Decisions regarding maternity leave and maternity pay should be made by national governments, not the EU," said Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP, the Conservative leader and employment spokesman in the European parliament. "It is not for Brussels to tell British mothers and fathers how much leave they should take.

"Small businesses will struggle to afford this extra cost. Ultimately some of the smallest businesses may think twice about employing young women through fear of them going on maternity leave."

Following Ireland's vote against the EU's Lisbon Treaty, some Brussels officials are eager to enthuse people with a series of more generous, socially oriented proposals.

The plan, which must yet be approved by EU member states and the European Parliament, would force employers to offer additional leave in the case of premature childbirth, when an infant that is hospitalised at birth or in the event of multiple births.

Mothers would also win the right to return to the same job or a similar one but with the same terms and conditions.

Employers would find it harder to fire mothers within six months of the end of the maternity leave. If dismissed within this period, they could ask for a written explanation.

Sunday 21 September 2008

rte - J-Lo wants to spend more time with twins

Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez has said that she wants to spend "every free moment" with her twin babies.
According to People magazine, the 39-year-old star said: "[Most days] I get up early with them. Then when the nanny comes, I can take a shower and give them their breakfast. She's there to help me get things done."
Referring to returning to work, she said: "It's gonna be a learning experience. How will I do both? I try to take breaks from work."

"I'll do a little work with the choreographers and then come back. I try to spend every free moment with the babies."
"When they see you and have that big smile on their face - I live for that," she said.

northern-times - Airlift drama as twins arrive early

SPECIALIST staff and emergency equipment were flown by air ambulance from Inverness and Aberdeen to the Lawson Memorial Hospital in Golspie on Monday as a mother went into premature labour with twins.
Justine Ainsworth, from Loth, near Helmsdale, went into labour on Monday, in the 31st week of her pregnancy, and was taken to Golspie as delivery seemed imminent.

Twin number one (Milo) was born at 10.37am by natural delivery and weighed in at 4lbs. However, support was requested from Raigmore Hospital in Inverness after twin number two (Max) kept everyone waiting and it was decided to deliver him by Caesarian section.Staff and equipment from Raigmore were taken by road and air to Golspie, a specialist neo-natal retrieval team was flown in from Aberdeen, and a staff member based in Wick drove down to Golspie.
Max was born at 1.20pm and transferred by helicopter to Raigmore, while mum and Milo went by road. Justine and the boys are now recovering well and have had a visit from dad, Leon, and big brother Luke (13 months).
Director of nursing and midwifery at Raigmore, Heidi May, said this week: "The staff have responded fantastically well in difficult circumstances. We're very pleased with the twins' progress and are continuing to monitor their condition closely."
Justine and Leon want to say a big thank-you to all the staff involved at Raigmore and the Lawson, as well as those from Wick and Aberdeen. In particular they praised the midwives from Golspie, Brora and Helmsdale – Beatrice Oliphant, Kay Mackinnon and Janice Macrae – and consultant obstetrician Dr Brian Reid and his team at Raigmore.
Said Justine: "Everyone was very calm and we are very grateful to them. We would also like to thank our childminder, Denise Mackay, for taking in Luke at such short notice."

eadt - Miracle triplets enjoy 9th birthday

NINE years ago, the birth of Jane and Mark Ingram's tiny triplets sent shockwaves through the medical world.Although Mary and Olivia had grown naturally in their mother's womb, sibling Ronan developed ectopically in Mrs Ingram's fallopian tube, somehow creating his own womb and blood supply.Little Ronan beat odds of 100million to one in surviving.He and his sisters have now celebrated their ninth birthdays together - something that would have defied all medical odds back in 1999.
Picture at just six months old. L-R: Olivia, Ronan, Mary Parents Jane and Mark have revealed how the traumatic birth of their young son has made the family realise the important things in life.And while all three display their own individual and unique personalities, the bond between them has put aside any adversity already experienced in their young lives.Speaking from their home in Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds, Mrs Ingram said: “We often think back to what happened and we just thank our lucky stars they are all here and healthy.“The whole family is so close. The older three children are very protective of the younger ones and I think we all have been through so much that it has brought us closer together. It has certainly made you realise what is important in life.”
Ronan, Olivia (left) and Mary The birth of the triplets made national headlines in 1999 when Ronan defied all medical odds when he survived despite developing in his mother's fallopian tube as an ectopic pregnancy and creating his own womb with his own blood supply.The birth was described as a miracle of modern medicine.Experts at King's College Hospital in London worked out how best to deliver the babies with a team of 26 on hand to assist with a complicated Caesarean section.Unsurprisingly, Ronan, Mary and Olivia were all tiny at birth weighing 2lbs 1oz, 2lbs 4oz and 2lbs 10oz respectively and needing round the clock care to nurse them through their first few days. Now the trio have brushed aside their precarious births to become normal, healthy children. The couple, who also has two older sons and an older daughter, said the triplets enjoyed their ninth birthday earlier this month and were now looking forward to Christmas.Mrs Ingram said: “Although there is this really close bond, they each have their own personalities now. Ronan loves his stationery, Olivia is into animals and art and she recently had work published in a children's book at her after school club, while Mary is typically girly.“They are all fit and healthy which is the main thing. They had great birthdays but they are not spoilt - only showered in love.”

Thursday 18 September 2008

mirror - My baby gave her twin cancer... in the womb

Weeks after she gave birth to two girls Alissa Dunn was dealt a double blow – in an incredibly rare case one of her daughters caught cancer from the other. Here she describes their fight..
When my two-month-old daughter Maddie’s stomach became bloated I didn’t think it was anything serious.
Even when she vomited, I thought it would be nothing more than a tummy upset. But at a check-up for Maddie and her identical twin sister Bella, the doctor told me she needed to go to hospital.
I began to fear the worst. And soon my fears were confirmed – Maddie had cancer.
But a few days later things got worse. Maddie had given it to her twin sister too, while they were both growing in my womb
I’d had a trouble-free pregnancy. Maddie and Isabella – who we call Bella – were born at 37-and-a-half weeks on July 4.
Isabella was born first at 4.28am, weighing 5lb 12oz. Then under 15 minutes later Maddie came along, weighing 5lb 8oz.
I had a feeling I was having boys so it was surreal when I saw these two perfect little girls. We already had a son, Isaiah, three, but I’d always wanted a girl so I felt our family was complete.
Just 24 hours later I took the girls home. They were very docile babies, and by eight weeks they were sleeping through the night.
Then, a few days before their two-month check-up, Maddie seemed a bit off-colour. Her tummy was slightly bloated and she vomited too.
The doctor prescribed drops, for wind, but she was still unwell at her check-up. The doctor said Maddie needed X-rays and I began to feel that something was horribly wrong.
On the way to the hospital I looked at my husband Michael, 32, and without thinking, I blurted out: ‘What if it’s cancer?’
I don’t know why it crossed my mind. But I clung to Bella while the doctors ran tests on Maddie.
A few hours later doctors broke devastating news.
Maddie had a neuroblastoma – a massive cancerous tumour in her abdomen. She was admitted to intensive care, where the doctors fussed round, covering her in tubes and wires as I willed her to pull through.
It was the worst moment of my life. I had to stay strong for Bella and Isaiah but all I could think about was Maddie lying in her tiny incubator.
Then, three days later, when she came to visit, I noticed that Bella’s tummy was swollen too. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
We rushed to tell the doctors straight away. I prayed there was no way lightning could strike twice.
But after countless tests, the doctors diagnosed Bella with cancer too.
It didn’t feel real.
The only difference was that while Maddie had a tumour, Bella didn’t. Her body was full of cancerous cells – in her bone marrow and blood, but not growing in a ball like Maddie’s. The doctors decided there was only one way it could have happened – Bella had ‘caught’ cancer from her sister through the placenta while they were still in the womb.
Because they shared the same blood, the cancer had passed between them. It was only the ninth recorded case of it happening in the world. The girls needed urgent treatment.
Maddie’s cancer was stage four – the worst kind.
I knew deep down what the prognosis could be, but it was still a shock when the doctors said that she only had a 20 per cent chance of survival.
Bella would have to go through chemotherapy too. All I could do was hope the doctors could mend their tiny bodies before the cancer took hold completely. They lay in intensive care surrounded by wires while I looked on helplessly.

Watching the girls fight it was agony. Worst of all I couldn’t pick them up because of risk of infection. And they were in so much pain that touching would have worsened it.
As their mum there was nothing I could do. I told myself I had to stay strong so they could take strength from me. I was sure they could feel my desperation, though.
And the girls were so amazing throughout they made us braver. No matter how much they were poked by the doctors, they would just cry for a second and then let the doctors get on with it. They were my inspiration.
But as their tufts of soft hair fell out from the chemo, my heart broke. I should have been watching my girls grow into toddlers, not waiting to find downy hair on their pillows.
While Isaiah stayed at home with my family, Michael, my mum and I lived in a special house for families with children at the hospital, so we could be close to the girls.
Maddie was on a ventilator because she couldn’t breathe on her own and they were both on big doses of morphine.
But I needed to be with Isaiah too. He was so young and needed his mum. And thankfully my mum, Lora, always stayed with the girls when I went home to see him.
One day, about three weeks after the girls were admitted, I came home and saw their babygrows in the airing cupboard.
I lost it. I screamed and cried, all my anger and fear pouring out.
I felt so cheated that these first weeks of their life were being snatched from me and that they might not ever make it home again.
Finally, 44 days later, the doctors said the girls were well enough to come home with us. I held them close as I carried them to the car.
They’d been through two gruelling rounds of chemo and still needed more anti-cancer drugs. But all that mattered was I could have them with me, in their room at our house in Grand Blanc, Michigan, USA.
Having them back home with us was amazing. Just being able to bathe and feed them was a joy. Though we did have to take the girls back to hospital for more treatment.
On December 20, 2007, we got the news I’d hoped so badly for. After four rounds of chemotherapy my little girls were cancer-free. It felt so amazing. I couldn’t believe they’d both beaten the cancer.
It’s a year on now, and both girls are doing well. Their hair has grown back, and they are both full of life.
They still need regular scans and blood and urine tests to check the cancer hasn’t returned, and it’s hard not to want to wrap them up in cotton wool.
They can both walk already – it’s such a change from seeing them lying in their hospital cots surrounded by wires – and as they totter around the house I feel so lucky.
Some people have asked me whether I’ll tell Maddie she ‘gave’ Bella cancer, and of course I will. It’s nothing to feel bad about – she had no control over it
And in a weird way I think it’s for the best that Bella got it too. Otherwise Bella couldn’t have been with Maddie through her treatment and I’m sure it was their incredible bond that gave Maddie the strength to fight.
Dr Bruce Morland, a consultant specialist in children’s cancer and the Chairman of Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, says: “This is fantastically rare.
“Neuroblastoma is one of the more common tumours. But like leukaemia it’s blood borne and as identical twins share a blood supply and a placenta then it can be ‘caught’.
“However it’s a one-way stream, so the mother won’t catch it. It couldn’t happen with non identical twins as they don’t share a placenta or blood supply.
“Neuroblastoma is quite common among infants and it’s not uncommon to be diagnosed on a scan or early in a baby’s life. Fortunately the majority of infants with neuroblastoma can be cured.”

bridlingtonfreepress - Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will have to - so how do you cope with twins?

Following news that Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins, we look at what she and partner Brad Pitt will be going through in the early days and ask the experts how they'll cope as they welcome the babies into their family.
Hollywood's golden couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – already the parents of four children – are now celebrating the birth of twins.Angelina, 33, gave birth to a boy, Knox Leon, and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline, by Caesarean in a hospital in the South of France. Brad, 44, was by Angelina's side. The tiny pair –- weighing around 5lb each – join Cambodian-born Maddox, aged six, Vietnamese-born Pax Thien, four, and Ethiopian-born Zahara, three, as well as the couple's biological daughter, two-year-old Shiloh.The wealthy superstars undoubtedly have already experienced some of the highs, lows and demands of parenthood with their multicultural "rainbow" family. But having twins is a uniquely challenging – as well as joyful – experience according to childcare experts and other famous parents of twins.TV presenter Alice Beer, mother of five-year-old twin girls Dora and Phoebe warns: "No matter how much money you can throw at it, those early months with twins are inevitably blooming hard work! So although having twins is incredible it's also non-stop and exhausting."There are around 11,000 twin and multiple births each year in the UK and that average is set to rise as women delay parenthood until after 30 and are increasingly overweight – both factors which raise the likelihood of twins. Alice, co-author with leading baby expert Gina Ford of the book A Contented House with Twins admits: "Nothing quite prepares you for the reality of having twins."Those first weeks were quite a shock. I had a Caesarian like Angelina and so I was not only sore and fragile after having an operation but also having to cope with two babies instead of just one."There are have been reports the first photographs of the film star couple and their twins are going for £8 million – a fee they plan to donate to charity.Alice, 43, says that she agreed to a Hello! exclusive, with the fee going to charity Tamba (the Twins and Multiple Births Association, www.tamba.org.uk). Alice jokes: "I'd advise Angelina not to rush to have those photos done. I must have been high on some kind of hormone when I agreed to it!"The twins were only about four months old when the magazine came and I was still finding it pretty stressful even to get myself organised enough to leave the house with the twins in tow, let alone getting them both looking perfect – at the same time – in their best outfits for photographs!" She adds: "You can't anticipate how much of your life is going to be stolen by these tiny babies. It's unbelievable."My husband Paul and I, who pre-twins were incredibly organised and punctual, found we always got everywhere two hours late – if at all."And she has some advice for Brad and Angelina. "You need to be a team. That's the way Paul and I got through. He would hold one baby and walk around with her while I fed the other, or we would be cuddling them both together.
With twins both of you always seem to have your hands full with one of them."For Brad and Angelina there will have been the initial joy and relief at the birth of healthy babies – twins are more likely to be premature and Angelina's planned Caesarian was brought forward for "medical reasons". GP Dr Carol Cooper, who is also a parent of twins and author of Twins And Multiple Births, says the higher risk of post-natal depression is not surprising: "Think two babies crying at different times, waking at different times and wanting feeding at different times. Life can become just looking after the babies 24/7."Brad and Angelina are privileged and wealthy, but for ordinary couples there may be the added stress of affording two of everything, perhaps even having to get a larger car or house. It can all add to the strain."Family and friends may underestimate the early challenge of twins, she adds. "Naturally everyone is happy for you when you have a baby – and especially two which may be a novelty in the family. But if everyone around you keeps saying, 'You're so lucky! How marvellous! Twins!' it can heighten your feelings of inadequacy if you're actually not always feeling lucky but are anxious, worried you're not coping and feeling low following the births. "Things that are straightforward with a single baby become difficult if not impossible with two. For instance, if you're holding two babies you have no hands free so you can't shut a door, make a snack or answer a phone – all possible when holding just one baby. It's helpful if family and close friends offer to do practical things for you to give you a break." Dr Cooper had an son of two when her twins (now 21) were born. "In general, a child that age can find it hard to adjust to the arrival of one baby – let alone two. They feel jealous and pushed aside and once it dawns on them that the babies are not going to be sent back – young siblings often think this is an option in the early days! – they can be quite troublesome."It's all attention seeking and will usually settle quickly as long as the parents give the child separate attention to make them feel special, too."Rumour has it that Brad and Angelina have already sought advice from other celebrity parents of twins particularly Julia Roberts and Danny Moder – who have a son and a daughter now three, Phinnaeus and Hazel.Brad is said to have asked Julia (Brad's co-star in Ocean's 11) whether there were different rules for bringing up twins as opposed to single children, to which she replied: "It's the same – only twice as hard!"

Monday 15 September 2008

Mail - Two babies die and 1,200 more fall sick as industrial chemical is added to baby milk formula

Two babies died and more than 1,200 were left sick after an industrial chemical was added to milk in China, it emerged today.
Today 53 infants were fighting for their lives and 240 were being treated in hospital after developing kidney stones from drinking the contaminated formula.
Chinese police have arrested two brothers they suspect added melamine, a chemical used in plastics, to watered-down milk at their dairy collection centre to make it appear higher in protein.

Worried: A father stands by his ill son holding a packet of contaminated formula
It was then sold on to Sanlu, China’s biggest provider of powdered milk, and turned into baby formula.
The firm, which is partly owned by New Zealand dairy farmers’ cooperative Fonterra, has now been ordered to cease production pending an investigation.
The brothers are accused of selling Sanlu about three tons of contaminated milk a day, Hebei police spokesman Shi Guizhong said.
Chinese investigators say melamine may have been added to the milk to fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk’s volume.
Melamine is rich in nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.
China’s Health Ministry said a total of 1,253 babies have been sickened after drinking the formula.
Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei told a news conference that 913 of the infants were only slightly affected and their condition was not considered life threatening.
However, 340 remained in hospitaland 53 cases were considered especially severe, he said.
No information was given about the fatalities.
Critics have claimed the problem had been known of for weeks, but had been hushed up because China did not want bad publicity during the Olympics.
Sanlu is 43 percent owned by a New Zealand firm Fonterra, the world’s biggest milk trader.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said today that she had learned of the problem on September 5 .
She convened a meeting of senior ministers three days later at which she ordered officials to directly inform senior authorities in Beijing.
At the time provincial Chinese officials appeared to be dragging their feet in ordering a recall.
‘We were the whistle blowers and they leapt in and ensured there was action on the ground,’ Clark told reporters.
‘At a local level ... I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall,’ she said.
Fonterra said it had urged Sanlu to recall the product as early as six weeks ago. Sanlu did not order a recall until last Thursday.
Chinese officials have defended their response to the country’s latest product safety disaster but blamed Sanlu Group for delays in warning the public.
Inspectors will check the country’s 175 baby milk food factories and their findings will be released within two days, Li said.
The incident is an embarrassing failure for China’s product safety system, which was overhauled in an attempt to restore consumer confidence after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.
The milk scandal is especially damaging because it involves a major Chinese food company and the government expects such companies to act as industry role models for safety and quality.
Shoddy and fake goods are common in China, and infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

mailonsunday - Twin girls born either side of midnight to be split up in school - because they fall in different academic years


As twin girls, the parents of one-week-old Lexus and Amber Conway expected them to share everything as they grew up.
But the possibility they will be separated for much of their formative years is already hanging over the pair - and all because they were born either side of midnight.
The girls were born just 45 minutes apart on the the night of August 31, but one arrived before it officially became September 1 and one after.
A matter of minutes means they are now facing being separated at school because their official birthdays fall either side of the division for academic years.

Unique: Newborn twin girls Lexus (left) and Amber face being schooled apart because they were born on either side of the cut-off date for academic years
Under the current rules, Lexus would be able to go to school aged four but because she was born slightly later, Amber would have to wait until she was five.
Their parents, Sarah Conway and Ian Caldwell, however, are determined they will not be split up and plan to fight for the next four years to prevent it.
Miss Conway said: 'Doing everything together is what being a twin is all about. How could I keep one at home and send one to school?
'I've been told this is a really unique case and I'm going to fight to make sure they go to school together even if it takes me the next four years.'
The 37-year-old administrator gave birth to Lexus naturally at 11.40pm on August 31at the Barratt Maternity Unit in Northampton.
Amber was delivered by Caesarean section just 45 minutes later but by that time, it had become September 1.
'The midwife said it was the first time she had ever heard of this happening to twins,' Miss Conway, from Northampton, said.
'It's such a shame for the girls, especially as Amber only missed the cut-off point by a matter of minutes.
'We tried to persuade the registry office to give them both August 31 as their birthdays but they said there was no leeway.'

Determined: Parents Sarah Conway and Ian Caldwell plan to fight to ensure their daughters can go to school at the same time
Mr Caldwell, who is also a twin, said they would teach the girls at home or move to Spain if they cannot start school together.
'My family live in Spain and they have a different academic year so we'd rather move out there than split up the twins,' his girlfriend added. .
Keith Reed, chief executive of the charity The Twins and Multiple Births Association, said this was the first case of its kind he had ever heard of.
'It's highly unusual for twins to be born in separate school years and I hope the local authority gives due regard to the individual needs of the children and family involved,' he said.
Northamptonshire County Council, the family's local authority, have also never encountered such a scenario before.
A spokesman said: 'We will need to look into this nearer the time Lexus and Amber are due to start school as part of their overall application for a school place.
'Any decision made will be in the best interests of both children as well as taking into consideration the wishes of the parents.'

guardian - France: Woman, 59, is oldest mother of triplets

A woman in France has become the oldest known mother of triplets after giving birth at 59, reigniting the debate about late pregnancy and so-called fertility tourism.
The woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, is of Asian origin and had fertility treatment in Vietnam. She gave birth by caesarean section at the weekend, the Cochin maternity hospital in Paris said yesterday. The triplets, two boys and a girl who weighed 2.3kg (5.1lb), 2.1kg and 2.4kg, were described as being in good health.
But fertility experts said it could not be taken as proof of the success of late pregnancies. It is illegal for French IVF clinics to treat women deemed too old to reproduce naturally. The age limit is generally 42, and the number of embryos used is limited to lessen the risk of multiple births.
"[Fertility laws] are there to treat infertility," Professor François Thépot, medical director of France's Biomedicine Agency, told Agence France-Presse. "We do not want to turn them into a new means of procreation for people who would like to have children out of the natural context."
The trend for women to seek IVF treatment in countries with less stringent regulations - dubbed fertility tourism - has prompted concern from specialists. A woman of 44 who had IVF in Greece against the advice of her French doctors has been in a coma since June after giving birth to healthy triplets in Angers.
"The complications are manageable until about 42, 43 years old," said Professor René Frydman, the doctor behind France's first test tube baby, in 1982. "But after that you're going into the danger zone, in particular around 60. The heart just isn't made for it,"
The previous oldest mother of triplets is thought to be an unidentified Italian woman of 57.

Monday 8 September 2008

dailyrecord - Mum blasts bus company after being told baby triplets can't ride for free

A MUM who was told she must pay to take one of her baby triplets on a bus has accused bosses of discrimination.
Carolyn Armstrong says she was "outraged" when drivers told her only two children under five could travel free.
They refused to back down even though the family do not use a single seat and Carolyn already pays for six-year-old son Euan.
Full-time mum Carolyn, 43, parks her double buggy in the wheelchair bay at the front of the bus and stands with the third triplet in a carrier on her back.
She gets off the bus if a wheelchair user requires the space.
But she says the only reply she has received to her complaints from Lothian Buses - in which Edinburgh City Council are the major shareholders - has been a copy of their policy.
Most other firms, including First Bus, say drivers are encouraged to use discretion when it comes to babies. They say mothers need not pay unless the children are occupying seats.
Former British Airways purser Carolyn, from Corstorphine, Edinburgh, said her husband Ricky, 49, a finance manager for Alliance Boots Pharmacies, often works away.
That leaves her to cope with 21-month-old triplets Ben, Laura and Grace and Euan alone.
She said: "I have always used the bus to get into the city centre - the number 26. But when I took the triplets I was shocked to be asked to pay extra money.
"I pay for Euan. If my babies were walking about and sitting on seats then I would have no problem paying for them too.
"But two stay in the double buggy while I have the other baby in a backpack on my back while I stand. They don't charge if you have a rucksack on your back.
"It is hard enough being in charge of triplet babies and I find myself limited in what I can do and where we can go now.
"I've written to Lothian Buses on several occasions but they just quote their policy. Some of the drivers have been quite rude."
She added that the firm's policy was "blatant discrimination".
A spokesman for Lothian Buses said: "Our conditions clearly state two children under the age of five can travel free with every full farepaying passenger. Additional children pay the child fare of 60p."
A spokeswoman for the Twins and Multiple Births Association said: "This is shocking. It is difficult enough to get out when you have twins, triplets or more in the first place."

irishhealth - Caesarean mums not as responsive to crying

Mothers who give birth vaginally are more responsive to the cries of their baby compared to mothers who have a Caesarean section, the results of a new study indicate.The number of women undergoing Caesarean sections in Ireland has been rising steadily in recent years. According to the latest figures available, one in four births (25%) in Irish hospitals are now by Caesarean, compared to just 12% in 1992.Researchers at Yale University in the US carried out MRI scans on women up to four weeks after giving birth. They found that mothers who had given birth vaginally were significantly more sensitive to their own baby’s crying. This was noted in the scans in the regions of the brain that are believed to regulate emotions, motivation and habitual behaviours.According to the researchers, the capacity of adults to develop the thoughts and behaviours needed for parents to care successfully for their newborn infants is supported by specific brain circuits and a range of hormones.They noted that a vaginal birth involves the release of oxytocin, a key hormone linked with maternal behaviour, while a Caesarean section does not.“We wondered which brain areas would be less active in parents who delivered by Caesarean section, given that this mode of delivery has been associated with decreased maternal behaviours in animal models and a trend for increased postnatal depression in humans,” explained lead author, Dr James Swain.He said that their results support the theory that variations in delivery conditions, such as with a Caesarean section, ‘alter the neurohormonal experiences of childbirth and might decrease the responsiveness of the human maternal brain in the early postpartum’.

Sunday 24 August 2008

Daily Mail - Fergie: Manchester United's new Brazilian twins have a bright future at Old Trafford


Sir Alex Ferguson believes his new Brazilian twins will have a bright future at Manchester United.
Right-back Rafael Da Silva played in the whole of United's friendly win at Peterborough on Monday.
And his twin Fabio played 45 minutes, replacing Patrice Evra on the other side of United's defence.
Ferguson said: 'The young players were fantastic and young Rafael the right-back was a sensation for me.
'I thought it was a real eye opener for us. He hadn't played for a year but he's played a full 90 minutes.
'His brother Fabio has played 45 minutes and he's also done well so we're really pleased by their contribution.
Asked whether Rafael could be on the way to a place in the first team, Ferguson said: 'You know what football's like. Sometimes it turns up some star, some little nugget maybe.
'I think we have got a good player here.'

Sunday 17 August 2008

BBC - Septuplet joy for Egyptian couple


An Egyptian woman has given birth to seven babies in the northern city of Alexandria, doctors said.
The mother, named as 27-year-old Ghazala Khamis, is said to be well and the septuplets - four boys and three girls - are reported to be stable.
The babies are said to weigh between 1.45 and 2.8kg (3-6lb); the couple already have three girls.
They sought fertility treatment hoping to have a boy, and were said to be astonished at the multiple pregnancy.
Since the introduction of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment 30 years ago, the number of multiple births has increased dramatically.
Health experts say septuplets are very rare, and it is even less common for all to survive.
The seven were delivered by Caesarean section a month early, and all have been placed in incubators designed for premature babies.
The woman's brother said that the Egyptian health minister had promised free milk and nappies for the babies for two years, to help the family cope.

Reuters - Rare sextuplets born in Iraq, four survive

NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - A woman has given birth to rare sextuplets in southern Iraq, but two of them died because the hospital lacked the proper equipment to keep them alive, her doctor said on Saturday.
Some Iraqi media described it as the first birth of sextuplets -- six children born at once -- in the country, although this could not be verified.
Sextuplet births are extremely rare although fertility treatments have increased the frequency of multiple births.
"Two of the children died because of problems breathing," said Dr Ali al-Jabiri, in charge of premature infants at Al-Habboubi Hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.
"If we had suitable medical equipment then we could have saved them," he added.
The babies all weighed between 700 and 1,200 grams (24-44 ounces). Two boys and two girls survived. Their mother had used fertility drugs.
"The problem is, how can I take care of them? How to feed them?" said their mother, Ibtisam Najim Abid, at the hospital.

Friday 15 August 2008

Daily Exspress - EXAM JOY AS STUDENTS RECORD BEST EVER RESULTS AT A LEVEL

STUDENTS across the country were last night toasting the nation’s best ever A-level results.
Brushing off concerns that the exams have become too easy, teenagers celebrated after recording an unprecedented 97 per cent pass rate.And one in four sixth-formers were awarded at least one A grade (25.9 per cent, up from 25.3 per cent last year).Teachers and ministers denied A levels have been dumbed down, despite the national pass rate rising to a record level for the 26th year in a row.Results received by some 300,000 teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, showed only 2.8 per cent of them failed the exams.But for the first time the exam board released a regional breakdown, examining pass rates and the proportion of students getting A grades in various areas of the country.It showed the greatest improvements in the last six years have been in the south-east with the north-east appears to be lagging behind.While the south-east has seen A grades rise 6.1 per cent – to 29.1 per cent since 2002 – the north- east has seen an improvement of just 2.1 per cent – to 19.8 per cent in the same period.Shadow Children’s Secretary Michael Gove said the divide was “worrying”.He said: “It underlines yet again the need for reform to create new good school places so that children in the less well-off areas get the same opportunities as others."

But there remained fierce argument over whether the tests had become too easy.While critics said the pass rate meant A levels were becoming meaningless, supporters argued that the results were simply a testament to students’ hard work and better teaching.Chris Keates, leader of the Nasuwt teachers’ union said: “These are Olympian achievements and represent years of hard work and sustained effort by students and teachers alike.”Dr John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “If you continue to get nearer to 100 per cent it would suggest schools and colleges’ guidance programmes are improving. That’s got to be in the best interests of students.”There was a whole gamut of success stories yesterday, including a set of 18-year-old quadruplets who scored stunning results. Tolu, Tayo, Tobi and Tosin, all members of the Oke family, were born just a few minutes apart.They all achieved A, B or C grades at the St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College in Clapham, south-west London.Sisters Tayo and Tolu and brothers Tobi and Tosin will now go to their first-choice universities.Tolu was awarded a grade A in history, an A in sociology and a B in English language and literature. Tobi achieved a B in English language and literature, a B in sociology and a C in history. Tayo got an A in business, an A in sociology and a C in biology. Tosin kept up the high standard with an A in sociology, a B in business and a C in IT.But the quads were not the only tale of success among families with multiple births.A set of triplets was also celebrating after a clean sweep in their A-level results – notching up a stunning 13 grade As between them.Tim, Rachel, and Clare Heard, all 18, are now looking forward to going to university.Tim, who gained the top grade in geography, chemistry, biology and general studies said: “We are all absolutely delighted with our results. Rachel and Clare worked really hard but I preferred to socialise with my friends.”The trio all attended King Edward Camp Hill School in Birmingham, but will now go their separate ways to different universities. Other successes saw identical twins Anika and Nicola Ueckermann scoring impressive results.The 18-year-olds, from Colchester County High School for Girls, were delighted with their A and B grades and will both go to the University of East Anglia. They rejected criticism that exams are becoming easier. “They are definitely not,” said Anika. “This year was really hard.”

Thursday 7 August 2008

warwick courier - Twins club turns 25 years

Members of Leamington's twins group have celebrated its 25th anniversary with a summer picnic.
Children and their parents met in Jephson Gardens last week to remember the opening of Leam-ington Spa and District Twins Club in 1983.More than two decades since it was started, the group is still offering the parents of twins a chance to meet others in the same situation.The club is appealing for any of the founding parents or children from 25 years ago to come forward so they can attend a summer party on Sunday.Organiser Lucinda Thornton joined the group when she found out she was pregnant with twins Annabelle and Jamie who are now two-and-a-half.She found the club while looking for advice on the internet.Describing the group, she said: "The twins club offers mothers a chance to speak with people who understand the issues of having twins. Normally people just say; 'I don't know how you cope which isn't very helpful. We offer the chance for mothers to discuss problems with people who have been through the same thing and it is a great help."Membership entitles parents to discounts on toys, equipment, holidays and many other things needed to raise twins.Second hand sales, parents' nights out and children's outings such as trips to Cotswold Wildlife Park are also offered.The club meets on Tuesdays between 10am and noon. Visit: www.warkcom.net/leamingtontwins
The full article contains 244 words and appears in Leamington Courier newspaper.

daily express - Lisa Marie Presley expecting twins

Lisa Marie Presley is expecting twins, her spokeswoman has said.
The babies are expected in the autumn. Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley and actress Priscilla Presley, announced her pregnancy on her MySpace page in March, saying she was forced to go public with the news after photos of her looking heavier were ridiculed in the media. The 40-year-old singer has two children from her marriage to musician Danny Keough, which ended in 1994. She was briefly married to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. Presley married music producer Michael Lockwood in January 2006."It's her time to celebrate with her husband," Priscilla Presley said in an interview. "My daughter is a very family girl. She loves children, and I know that she and Michael have been hoping for this for a long time." She said twins run in the family "on Elvis' side and on my side too. I have twin brothers, and then, of course, Elvis had a twin brother" who died at birth.

Thursday 31 July 2008

nhs news - Complications of IVF

“Fears of complications with IVF babies dismissed in new study” is the headline in The Guardian. Research based on 1.2 million births in Norway looked at the babies of women who had conceived once by IVF and once spontaneously. It found little difference between the siblings, and concludes that the risks associated with IVF are likely to be related to existing fertility problems in the parents and not a result of techniques used during assisted fertilisation, the newspaper explains.
The Daily Telegraph also reported some of the results of this study, saying “babies conceived through IVF are much more likely to die at birth”. These results are consistent with many other studies looking at the outcome of assisted fertilisation pregnancies. The newspaper did not directly discuss the implications found in the comparison of IVF and non-IVF siblings.
This large study used complex statistical methods to try to tease out the risks related to the various factors. It is reliable and should be reassuring to women undergoing IVF. However, it is important to note that the risks of complications in an individual birth are in fact quite low (around 1% perinatal deaths in this study).
Where did the story come from? Dr Liv Bente Romundstad from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Olavs University Hospital in Trondheim, and other colleagues from around Norway, UK and France, carried out the research. The study was funded by the Trondheim Hospital and the Norwegian Research Council. It was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.
What kind of scientific study was this? This was a cohort study in which the researchers used data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. This has records of more than 2.2 million births, which occurred in Norway between 1967 and 2006. The researchers had information about pregnancy across the population as it had been recorded on standard forms by midwives or doctors within one week of delivery for all deliveries after 16 weeks gestation. This information included details about the mother’s health, antenatal and birth history, and it was linked to the “Statistics Norway” database. The researchers were able to identify outcomes for all the babies, because in Norway each baby is given a unique identification number.
From the data on 1,305,228 births from January 1984 to the end of June 2006, the researchers excluded records where there was missing data on the number of children, or if the mother was less than 20 years old or had had more than six children. Only single babies (not twins or other multiple births) who were born at 22 weeks or later, and weighed 500g or more, were assessed. After this process, they found 1,200,922 births following normal conception and 8,229 after assisted fertilisation.
First, the researchers assessed differences in birthweight, gestational age, and the chances that babies were born small for their gestational age, were born prematurely or died in the period around birth (perinatal death). They analysed the relationships between all these variables, using a model that looked at all mothers as a whole (the whole study population analysis). They also divided the mothers into groups for their year of birth, maternal age, and number of children, and assessed them separately.
"The adverse outcomes of assisted fertilisation ... could therefore be attributable to the factors leading to infertility, rather than to factors related to the reproductive technology." Liv Bente Romundstad, lead author
After this whole study population analysis, the researchers then looked at whether the risks associated with IVF were due to the IVF technique itself or whether they were due to other factors linked to the fertility of the parents. In order to do this, they compared the health of babies born to mothers who had experienced both an assisted fertilisation (IVF) conception and a normalone. There was information for 2,546 Norwegian women available for analysis. These “sibling-relationship comparisons” looked at whether there were differences between the brothers or sisters born to women after both assisted fertilisation and normal conception. The researchers also took into account the order of conception (if IVF occurred before spontaneous conception or the other way around). They adjusted the results for maternal age, number of previous babies, sex of the baby, time between pregnancies and year of delivery.
What were the results of the study? In the whole study population analysis, assisted-fertilisation conceptions were associated with lower average birthweight (a difference of about 25g), shorter duration of gestation (about two days), and an increased risk of babies being too small for their gestational age, or dying in the period around birth.
In the sibling-relationship comparisons, where spontaneously conceived babies were compared with their assisted-fertilisation conceived sibling, there was an average difference of only 9g in birthweight and 0.6 days in gestational age, and these differences were not statistically significant.
There was also no statistically significant difference in the rates of small-for-gestational age births and perinatal mortality when the assisted fertilisation babies were compared with the spontaneous conception babies in the sibling-relationship comparisons.
What interpretations did the researchers draw from these results? The whole study population results, which showed that the risk of adverse events is higher with IVF, are consistent with many other studies looking at the outcome of assisted fertilisation pregnancies compared with spontaneous pregnancies.
However, looking at the babies born to women who had conceived both spontaneously and after assisted fertilisation, there was no difference in birthweight, gestational age, risk of small-for-gestational-age babies, and preterm delivery between siblings.
The researchers conclude that adverse outcomes of assisted fertilisation seen in the general population could therefore be attributable to the factors leading to infertility, rather than to factors related to the IVF technique itself.
What does the NHS Knowledge Service make of this study? This study has successfully compared the outcomes in the babies of individual women who had become pregnant following both assisted (IVF) conception and a normal (spontaneous) conception.
This is a novel approach made possible by the large population-based database. As a large study, it has provided reliable results. Even so, the researchers say that the study was not large enough (powered enough) to study births that occurred before 32 weeks of gestation, or to study the perinatal mortality among women who had conceived both spontaneously and after assisted fertilisation.
It is possible that some of the conceptions were misclassified, i.e. recorded incorrectly, particularly for those women where conception occurred outside of Norway.
Overall, the study confirms that birthweight, gestational age, and risks of small-for-gestational-age infants and preterm delivery did not differ among brothers and sisters born to women who had conceived both spontaneously and after assisted fertilisation. This should provide reassurance to mothers that any adverse effects following assisted fertilisation are more likely to be due to underlying infertility

Wednesday 30 July 2008

The new Mountain Buggy Urban Double is due August



The New Mountain Buggy Urban Double 2008 buggy has just get even better, the buggy has always been a favorite with mums and dads of twins, it's a roomy yet narrow double buggy at just 74cm wide fits through most doors yet has plenty of space for your growing children.
The new MBUD 2008 is suitable from birth with the multi reclining seats adjusting to near flat and the new model now has an aduster bulit into the harnesh for smaller babies - great from twins! or as with all the range can be used with Mountain Buggy Carry Cots to make a twin pram.
Comes complete with a free Mountain Buggy Twin Storm cover, with it's front opening zip which can be rolled open, large shopping basket with pockets for bottles and keys and phone, a bottle carrier and a Mountain Buggy pump is included in our price.
The short wheelbase makes maneuvering easy, and as its so narrow helps when exiting doorways. The front swivel wheels option is excellent on busy streets & indoors and offers true 'turn the buggy with just one finger' .
By locking the front wheel to the fixed position, the Mountain Buggy Urban Double can handle the park, light jogging & off-road conditions with ease making this an all terrain buggy, and now with rear suspension to give even more comfort. The four large wheels give market leading stability in all conditions for safety, and with an adjustable handlebar to ensure optimum comfort for the parents while pushing.
Turn this buggy into a twin pram with optional carrycots available to suit one or two babies or two toddlers, details of carry cots can be found in our Buggy Accessories.
Mountain Buggy Urban Double 2008 offers -
All purpose High tensile aluminium frame
Upright to fully reclined seat positions
Rear wheel suspension for a smoother ride on any surface

Large storage basket with smaller storage pockets
Suitable from newborn
Quick release wheels
5-point safety harness
Foot operated brake
Easy one-step fold
Sunhood with viewing window
Water resistant, easy cleaning Hardwearing fabric
Full range of accessories
Free air pump and drink bottle holder
Made in New Zealand
Dimensions
Width 74 cms
Fold Size With Wheels 104 x 39.5 x 74 cms
Weight 16 kgs
Mountain Buggy reviews

Should you require further assistance, or wish to place a pre order for the new 2008 Mountain Buggy, please email customerservice@twins-store.co.uk delivery due in August

guardian - The fertility tourists

The fertility tourists
The ads are brazen: 'healthy young women - superovulated exclusively for you!'. The fees are half those of UK clinics ('flights and hotel included!'). And the industry is unregulated, leaving doctors free of legal and ethical constraints. No wonder more and more Europeans are going to India for fertility treatment. Raekha Prasad reports
Raekha Prasad
Wednesday July 30 2008
At the end of last year, Ekaterina Aleksandrova boarded a plane in London and flew to Mumbai. It wasn't her first trip there - she is a management consultant and often goes abroad on business. But this time she went to have five embryos implanted in her womb. A couple of days later she flew back to Europe. While on business in Hong Kong in January, she discovered she was pregnant with just one embryo.
For Aleksandrova, 42, this was the culmination of a six-year struggle to become a mother. She divorced at 29, and hadn't been in a serious relationship since she was 34. "I always wanted to have a child but the men kept saying, 'Why don't we travel?'" she says. "It wasn't that I was obsessed with my career, I just couldn't get men to be a father."
First, she tried to adopt in Germany, where she holds citizenship, but that didn't work out. Then, in 2004, she moved to the UK to take advantage of this country's more liberal attitude to single women who need IVF. She spent £18,000 in less than three years, trying and failing to conceive at a private Harley Street clinic. When she finally conceived in India, Aleksandrova was in a state of "shock and disbelief".
The baby she is due to give birth to in September has no genetic link with Aleksandrova. The colour of its eyes, length of its legs and slope of its nose will be determined by a man and a woman who are strangers not only to her, but also to each other. Her baby's biological parents live 7,000km apart, and are separated by language, culture and currency. All they share is their decision to ply their gametes in the global fertility bazaar where Aleksandrova shopped for the ingredients of life, perusing and eventually paying for eggs and sperm. Aleksandrova bought the sperm online from a Danish sperm bank retailing in New York. The $1,600 (£800) price-tag included shipping to Mumbai, where her Indian doctor helped get the tiny frozen container through customs unscathed. There, the Danish sperm was used to fertilise the fresh eggs of an Indian woman who was paid 40,000 rupees (£500).
Alexsandrova first began surfing foreign fertility clinics' websites in the winter of 2006/7. Impressed with the Indian doctor's responses to her email inquiries, she flew out to Mumbai for a couple of days the following April to investigate further. She then visited the Taj Mahal.
She brought home a Punjabi-style pyjama suit for the baby to wear if it was a boy, and bangles if it was a girl. India has a fascinating culture, she says, and she plans to bring the child to India to expose him or her to "50% of their background". The prospect of raising a mixed-race child doesn't faze her. The daughter of a diplomat, she was born in Pakistan and says she has fond memories of her childhood Pakistani friends. "I'm curious to know how the baby's going to look being Danish-Indian. I like coloured kids. I find them cute. I find mixed blood gives a bit of a boost."
She plans to tell the child the truth about the way he or she was conceived. "You can't lie to your child all your life," she says. But she hasn't yet thought about the fallout if the child wants to know more about its genetic parents. "It's preferable that they're kept anonymous. What's the meaning of finding out?"
Aleksandrova herself knows very little about the donors. Her baby's father, she learned from the bank's online catalogue, is 6ft 4in, an architectural student from a family of doctors and "musical". She knows even less about the baby's biological mother, the egg donor. They have never met and donor anonymity prevails in India. "The doctor asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted a young, healthy woman with a child. Because I'm Caucasian, I wanted a fair-skinned person. The doctor said 'she is good-looking with some education'. I'd love to know more. But I trust him. I don't think he picks someone off the street," she says.
In Britain, there is an acute shortage of women donors. Had she stayed here, Alexsandrova would have faced a long wait for eggs, a bill of £7,000, and a cap on the number of embryos planted in her womb - a restriction aimed to prevent high-risk multiple pregnancies but, in her eyes, a curb on her chances to have a baby.
It is different in India; there, the market rules. Clinics' websites offer "many healthy young fertile Indian women" who are "superovulated exclusively for you" in dollar rates payable online by credit card. Moreover, Aleksandrova's Indian clinic put more than double the number of embryos allowed in the UK into her body. "I understand multiple-births are not a good thing," she says. "But for women like me whose bodies reject embryos, the higher the number, the greater my chance."
Alexsandrova is part of a growing number of global fertility tourists from rich countries such as Britain who fish for cut-price genetic material from India's pool of highly trained, English-speaking doctors.
It is a phenomenon wholly distinct from medical tourism, where patients needing a hip replacement or heart bypass receive identical treatment minus the waiting list and the large bills. Reproductive holidays in India are a real getaway from conditions back home. Fertility tourists are often people desperate to break free from not only financial, but also legal and ethical constraints, in a bid to create life. And Indian clinics woo patients with the language of free choice and a can-do attitude.
Age, for example, rarely poses a barrier in India. Earlier this year, twin girls conceived by IVF in India were born in the Midlands to a British Indian couple with a combined age of 131. Their mother, thought to be 59, is one of the oldest women in Britain to give birth.
Ethnicity is no problem either. Those making the trip to India are not just people of Indian descent who want a baby who resembles them. Increasingly, they are white couples that have no problem with the idea of having brown babies.
India was the second country in the world after the UK to produce a "test-tube baby" - the Indian girl was born just 67 days after Louise Brown in 1978 - but it has yet to create a single law regarding infertility treatment. Instead, Indian IVF doctors are self-regulating and only have to refer to a set of guidelines, not work within them.
Meanwhile, Britain has spent the past 30 years reforming infertility laws through public debates. These began with the Warnock Committee in the early 80s, which examined the moral, scientific and religious issues raised by IVF and led to the establishment of the world's first statutory body of its kind - the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority - to license and monitor clinics.
Three decades of scrutiny of IVF techniques in Britain has resulted in a recognition of the emotional maelstrom inherent in the creation of life. The result is that not only do British doctors consider the scientific possibilities of having a child, but also the impact of assisted reproduction on a child's emotional wellbeing, human rights and racial identity. Just because you can do something does not mean you should, is the maxim in Britain. The opposite appears to be the case in India.
There, the growing number of white westerners turning up for fertility treatment is reported in the press not as an ethical dilemma, but simply as another example of how the country is "booming": it is a source of national pride that India is getting foreigners pregnant where their own countries have failed. "Move over yoga, Ayurveda, there's a new Asian hip trend starting up ..." begins a story in the Indian Express on a British couple at a Mumbai clinic.
Similarly, while Diane Blood faced years of legal challenge and moral handwringing in her quest to use her dead husband's sperm for IVF, her Indian counterpart, "Puja", became India's first woman earlier this year to conceive with her dead husband's sperm. There was no fanfare, legal wrangling or public debate; her pregnancy was simply reported as a happy ending to a sad story.
One of India's most vocal proponents of patient choice is Dr Aniruddha Malpani, a favourite among British fertility tourists. To get to his clinic, on the edge of Mumbai's upmarket shoreline, his foreign patients must travel from the shiny new airport, past glass towerblocks in the shadow of which ragged children play in fetid pools beside pavements where they sleep, before arriving in a street lined with palm trees. A lift carries them several floors up into the compact, white-walled clinic where nurses scuttle between clean, sparse private bedrooms.
More than half the clinic's patients are from abroad. Hundreds like Alexsandrova, who have had no success in their own country, come to the man who says "yes". Sitting behind his desk in a small office, Malpani is a fast-talking defender of patients' rights, and sees the people he treats as consumers of a technology that needs only the lightest of regulation. As long as people can pay, let them decide, he says. He rails against the "sociologists" who question whether science can act without ethical restraint. "In whose interests are we doing this stuff? Should there be someone sitting in judgment? It's best for the mother to decide what's best."
Malpani turns out to be master of medical propaganda. He calls his patients "reproductive exiles" from medical establishments that are hostile to their desire to have children. The people who come are not desperate, he says, they have been disempowered - and his team is intervening to allow them to "build families".
Malpani taps on the keyboard in front of him while we talk. When challenged on a point, he types rapidly and spins round the screen on which flashes the relevant web page to back up his argument. The impression is of a man in a hurry to prove the world wrong, with all the arguments at his fingertips.
In Britain, people conceived since 2005 by a donor have the right to information about their genetic parent once they reach the age of 18. Children conceived using donor eggs, sperm or embryos in India have no such right; there, donors remain anonymous. That's as it should be, insists Malpani: receiving an embryo from a stranger is no different from getting pregnant after a one-night stand, he says. "If someone just slept with someone and decided to have the baby, no one would ask her to reveal his identity. Just because it's a clinic, why do these questions get asked?"
Malpani also sees no problem with his clinic giving white patients the eggs and embryos of Indian donors, saying, "They've thought about it", before enthusing about how "alike" donor-conceived children's mannerisms are to their birth parents.
British medical thinking, he says, is not designed with the patient in mind. In Britain doctors and patients are encouraged to transfer a maximum of two embryos into the uterus. Any more and the risks of premature birth, smaller babies and children with language and behavourial disorders increases substantially.Malpani transfers up to five embryos. "We have the flexibility to give a woman the best chance," he says. "If they don't get pregnant at all, they are the ones to suffer."
By his own admission, Malpani is a libertarian. He is also a respected fertility expert - his IVF clinic has been named among India's best - with a CV boasting a string of awards and scholarships for his clinical skills.
His greatest advocates, however, are those patients he has enabled to have a child. Sitting on the sofa in their living room more than 6,500km away from Mumbai in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, are Brian and Wendy Duncan. Wendy, 42, pulls her three-year-old daughter, Freya, on to her lap: the little girl was conceived with Malpani's treatment.
"Freya is just like me. I delivered her and experienced every moment of her growing," says Duncan.
What is striking on first meeting mother and daughter, however, is their difference: Duncan is the palest of redheads while Freya has the dark skin, black hair and brown eyes of an Indian. She looks nothing like her father, either, who is also white. To conceive Freya, Duncan had five fertilised embryos from an Indian couple implanted into her womb.
Duncan was denied IVF treatment on the NHS because she already had a daughter, now 22, and was both overweight and a smoker. So the Duncans went private, borrowing £8,000 for one IVF cycle, which failed. For their second attempt, in India, they spent half that amount, including flights and hotels. "I wanted a child. The system in Britain didn't allow me to have one, so I had to look for an honest alternative," Duncan says.
While ethical decisions in India are left in the hands of individual doctors, in Britain each proposed embryo or gamete donation is considered by a clinic's mandatory ethics committee made up of lay people, clinicians, nurses and counsellors. There is no blanket ban on interracial donation, says Pip Morris of The National Gamete Donation Trust, "but the donor would be matched as closely as possible to the recipient".
"For example, if you had two black recipients and a white donor then that would be questioned and refused. If there's any doubt about the welfare of the child, then a donation would not go ahead."
Duncan says Freya's racial difference is irrelevant to her. "I wasn't bothered when she was born and I'm not concerned now. What matters is that she gets all the love and care she needs growing up." But what if it's relevant to Freya? "Of course I'll tell her if she asks about it. But if she doesn't, I won't stick my neck out to tell her."
Duncan argues Freya's looming questions about the fact her genetic parents are from a different continent, culture and race will be little different from those of her eldest daughter, from a previous relationship, who is mixed race. "When I told my older daughter about her origin there was no problem and it shouldn't be too difficult for Freya to understand the dynamics of it."
In the global market of commercial fertility, India remains one of the cheapest places to buy gametes. In America the going rate for an egg from an Ivy League student is around $60,000 (£30,000). An Indian egg never fetches more than 40,000 rupees (£500), and in the country's small towns a woman is paid as little as 5,500 rupees (£70).
It is almost impossible to get an accurate picture of exactly who India's donors are. The issue is shrouded in secrecy. Part of the reason appears to be the social stigma of being a donor in a conservative society. When asked about the backgrounds of their donors, IVF doctors give a standard response: they are from lower middle-class families, and are all married, with at least one child. One says they might work as a secretary or in a shop and generally have "a little education". But all the doctors claim donors refuse to be interviewed.
Perhaps one unspoken reason for the secrecy is the ugly reality that some donors in a country as poor as India trade their eggs simply to stay afloat financially.
In a dusty rural hamlet near the city of Anand, in the western state of Gujarat, Pushpa clutches her seven-year-old daughter's hand and stares at the cement floor of her house. The 25-year-old sold one of her eggs to pay off crippling debts after the family was reduced to eating just one meal a day. Her husband earns 2,800 rupees (£35) a month labouring on a construction site. "A moneylender would have stripped us of whatever little gold we had. I could not let my last bit of security go," she says.
The emphasis placed on informed consent, rights and counselling for egg donors in rich countries are absent in Anand. Moreover, the medical risks associated with farming eggs, such as pelvic infection or ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome - which in severe cases can be life-threatening - are often hidden from donors."The doctor told me there were no risks; that donating was just selling something that will be wasted away from my body anyway," Pushpa says.
Of even more concern, say critics of India's unregulated IVF industry, is the way that some doctors try to maximise profits by overdosing donors with hormones to stimulate them. "The amount of drugs pushed into them is way above the recommended dose," says Dr Puneet Bedi, a Delhi-based consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist specialising in foetal medicine. "If guidelines say to give 10 shots, they'll give 20 to increase the harvest rate and optimise their conception rates. Because IVF is a completely commercialised industry in India, it's all about delivering to whoever's paying."
The result is that the risk to a donor's health is amplified, says Bedi. While in Britain there is officially a 1% to 2% chance of egg donors getting hyperstimulation syndrome, Indian donors face "a many, many fold risk" in comparison. "We don't really know what happens to these women. Who pays for her life-threatening treatment? Nobody cares. Nobody's answerable."
Pushpa is matter-of-fact about her decision. "You wouldn't ask me why I did it if you'd ever lived on one meal a day," she says bitterly. "Selling the egg was quite easy. I was given some medicine; they took it out. I got the money."
So lucrative was the 5,600 rupees (£70) she received for donating, she did it twice more. "I wanted to send my children to a good school. They will have a better future. This was only possible because of me - a woman. After all, men can't produce eggs," she says.
She doesn't know who bought her eggs. "I don't feel exploited; here, in the villages, every aspect of life is exploitative - where you can work, what you can eat, when you have sex. This is the best option available to me," Pushpa says.
Not all Indian egg donors come as cheap as Pushpa. At the top of the country's social ladder are urban college students, who sell their eggs to bankroll their penchant for new clothes and gadgets. Sipping a cappuccino on the terrace of a cafe in a bustling Mumbai business district, one 20-year-old physics student - who agrees to speak anonymously - explains why she sold her eggs to one of the city's infertility clinics for 20,000 rupees (£250).
Some of her friends had sold their eggs and so she began searching clinics' websites. "If I can earn more money than getting a part-time job, then why not?" she says. "I needed to buy a new mobile and wanted to go abroad on vacation with my friends. I have always had what I wanted in life. But for my own enjoyment, I can't ask my parents for money all the time."
Although she is dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and designer shades, like any other affluent student in India's financial capital, she is acutely aware of the stigma surrounding donation in India. "My parents must never find out. They wouldn't understand why I did it," she says. "They'll think I'll never be able to be a mother myself. It's in the best interests of the family to keep it a secret."
Time is up. She waves down a taxi and hops inside. "I couldn't afford this ride earlier and now I can," she says as the car pulls away. "What's wrong with that?"

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