Determinants of female fecundity and outcome of pregnancy : epidemiological cohort studies to the effects of age, biometry and life style habits

Becoming a mother is no more a matter of destiny only, but increasingly a matter of choice as wel!. Until recently, having children was as natura! as eating, drinking and dying. Children just "happened" during the course of (married) life. However in modem societies life does not just "happen" any more; life is organized around the assumption that men and women should fee! free to choose the goals in their Jives and the ways to achieve such a goal, in other words: to plan their Jives ahead. With the general availability of education, it was possible for women also to achieve a professional goal through a career path. With the availability of contraception, especially since the introduetion of the pill in the sixties, it was possible to design a reproductive "career" as to the question: Do I want children at all; if yes how many and when? In order to abserve changes in societal trends, the disciplines of epidemiology and demography are more suitable than the medica! sciences. A medica! doctor has been educated for the "exception", the individual patient approach and not for the "rule". Demograpbic data show that of those Dutch females who are now fifty years of age or older, about 10% have remairred childless. Of those, now 40 years old, 15% has nat had a child yet. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Stalistics prediets a further increase in childlessness at 40 to about 20-25% for females bom after 1965. Because there are no indications that infertility among females, who are currently 40 years of age, is higher than in previous generations, it seems that voluntary childlessness has risen considerably among women1 Thus an increasing number of women appear to plan a career of non-reproduction. However the women who do plan a reproductive "career" do not only opt for fewer children than in the past, but also that the child should be perfect, in impeccable state. A realm of prenatal screening services are developed to distinguish during early pregnancy between the affected and unaffected fetus; leaving the subsequent decision to carry the pregnancy to term to the individual parents. In other words a desired pregnancy does not necessarily lead to a desireful pregnancy outcom

The impact of female obesity on the outcome of fertility treatment

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Menstrual cycle phase does not predict political conservatism

Recent authors have reported a relationship between women's fertility status, as indexed by menstrual cycle phase, and conservatism in moral, social and political values. We conducted a survey to test for the existence of a relationship between menstrual cycle day and conservatism. 2213 women reporting regular menstrual cycles provided data about their political views. Of these women, 2208 provided information about their cycle date, 1260 provided additional evidence of reliability in self-reported cycle date, and of these, 750 also indicated an absence of hormonal disruptors such as recent hormonal contraception use, breastfeeding or pregnancy. Cycle day was used to estimate day-specific fertility rate (probability of conception); political conservatism was measured via direct self-report and via responses to the "Moral Foundations” questionnaire. We also recorded relationship status, which has been reported to interact with menstrual cycle phase in determining political preferences. We found no evidence of a relationship between estimated cyclical fertility changes and conservatism, and no evidence of an interaction between relationship status and cyclical fertility in determining political attitudes. Our findings were robust to multiple inclusion/exclusion criteria and to different methods of estimating fertility and measuring conservatism. In summary, the relationship between cycle-linked reproductive parameters and conservatism may be weaker or less reliable than previously thought

Tailored preconceptional dietary and lifestyle counselling in a tertiary outpatient clinic in the Netherlands

Background Adverse reproductive performance has been linked to unhealthy dietary intake and lifestyles. Our objectives were to investigate the prevalence of unhealthy dietary intake and lifestyles before conception and to evaluate whether tailored preconception counselling modifies these behaviours. Methods Between October 2007 and April 2009, 419 couples received tailored preconception dietary and lifestyle counselling at the outpatient clinic of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands. A subgroup (n = 110 couples) was counselled twice with a fixed time interval of 3 months. Self-administered questionnaires were used for tailored dietary and lifestyle counselling. A cumulative score based on six Dutch dietary guidelines was displayed in the personal Preconception Dietary Risk score (PDR score). In a similar manner, the Rotterdam Reproduction Risk score (R3 score) was calculated from lifestyle factors (women: 13 items, men: 10 items). Univariate and paired tests were used. Results Most couples (93.8) were subfertile. At the second counselling, the percentage consuming the recommended intake of fruit had increased from 65 to 80 in women and from 49 to 68 in men and the percentage of women getting the recommended intake of fish increased from 39 to 52. As a consequence, the median PDR score was decreased [women: 2.6 (95 CI 2.4-2.9) to 2.4 (95 CI 2.1-2.6), men: 2.5 (95 CI 2.3-2.7) to 2.2 (95 CI 1.9-2.4), both P < 0.05]. The median R3 scores were also lower [women: 4.7 (95 CI 4.3-5.0) to 3.1 (95 CI 2.8-3.4), men: 3.0 (95 CI 2.8-3.3) to 2.0 (95 CI 1.7-2.3), both P < 0.01] due to less alcohol use (-14.6), more physical exercise and folic acid use in women, and less alcohol use in men (-19.4) (all P < 0.01). The R3 scores in women and men were decreased in all ethnicity, educational level, neighbourhood and BMI categories. However, low educated women appeared to show a larger reduction than better educated women and men with a normal BMI to show a larger decrease than overweight men. The reduction in the PDR score of women was similar in both ethnic groups. More than 85 women and men found the counselling useful and around 70 would recommend it to others. Conclusions Tailored preconception counselling about unhealthy dietary and lifestyle behaviours of subfertile couples in an outpatient tertiary clinic is feasible and seems to decrease the prevalence of harmful behaviours in the short term. These Results with subfertile couples are promising and illustrate their opportunities to contribute to reproductive performance and pregnancy outcome

Patterns of eye-movements when Male and Female observers judge female attractiveness, body fat and waist-to-hip ratio

Behavioural studies of the perceptual cues for female physical attractiveness have suggested two potentially important features; body fat distribution (the waist-to-hip ratio or WHR) and overall body fat (often estimated by the body mass index or BMI). However none of these studies tell us directly which regions of the stimulus images inform observers’ judgments. Therefore, we recorded the eye-movements of 3 groups of 10 male observers and 3 groups of 10 female observers, when they rated a set of 46 photographs of female bodies. The first sets of observers rated the images for attractiveness, the second sets rated for body fat and the third sets for WHR. If either WHR and/or body fat are used to judge attractiveness, then observers rating attractiveness should look at those areas of the body which allow assessment of these features, and they should look in the same areas when they are directly asked to estimate WHR and body fat. So we are able to compare the fixation patterns for the explicit judgments with those for attractiveness judgments, and infer which features were used for attractiveness. Prior to group analysis of the eye-movement data, the locations of individual eye fixations were transformed into a common reference space to permit comparisons of fixation density at high resolution across all stimuli. This manipulation allowed us to use spatial statistical analysis techniques to show: 1) Observers’ fixations for attractiveness and body fat clustered in the central and upper abdomen and chest, but not the pelvic or hip areas, consistent with the finding that WHR had little influence over attractiveness judgments. 2) The pattern of fixations for attractiveness ratings was very similar to the fixation patterns for body fat judgments. 3) The fixations for WHR ratings were significantly different from those for attractiveness and body fat

Waist-to-Hip Ratio Is Positively Associated with Bioavailable Testosterone but Negatively Associated with Sexual Desire in Healthy Premenopausal Women

We examined whether high waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in women is a biomarker for increased testosterone (T) and higher levels of sexual desire. Methods: Participants were 99 healthy nonobese premenopausal women. Trait levels of mean bioavailable T were estimated from three saliva samples collected at 8:00 AM, 9:30 AM, and 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, controlling for phase of the menstrual cycle. Sexual desire was measured with the Sexual Desire Inventory. Results: WHR was positively, although moderately, correlated with bioavailable T. WHR, but not T, was negatively correlated with level of sexual desire. Conclusions: These results confirm that the positive association between WHR and androgens seen in clinical populations also exists in the general population of healthy adult women. However, the relationship may not be strong enough in healthy women for WHR to serve as a useful biomarker of androgen levels in sexuality studies, especially given its association with other, perhaps negatively valued, morphologic attributes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83871/1/waist-to-hip.pd