More Forum letters online at TO ...thomsonfertility.com.sg/FileStore/product/19project...BY SALMA...
2
TOP THREE HOME STORIES ONLINE L All above-ground MRT stations now have platform screen doors L Workplace fatalities up, most due to falls, slips and trips from heights L Naked video-chat scam couple face more charges Apple’s new iPad will still be released in Singapore on March 16. Reports, blog and photos in the Big Story. Subscribe to and sync the ST Reader to read the latest news offline while on the go More Forum letters online at www.straitstimes.com TO CONTACT THE NEWS DESK, PLEASE CALL 6319-5397 WHAT’S ONLINE FOLLOW AND ENGAGE ST ONLINE News: www.straitstimes.com Connect: www.facebook.com/thestraitstimes Follow: twitter.com/stcom BY SALMA KHALIK HEALTH CORRESPONDENT HEALTHY young women should be al- lowed to freeze their eggs for future use in a move that could help to reverse Singa- pore’s falling birth rate, say several fertili- ty experts. When it comes to getting pregnant and delivering thriving babies, it is not the mother’s age that matters but how old her eggs are. Freezing them while the woman is at the peak of her fertility can allow her to put off having children until later in life, perhaps when she has pur- sued a career or met the right man. The technique is becoming increasing- ly popular in countries such as Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, where it is used to help those in their late 30s and 40s give birth to healthy infants. As the science improves, it is becom- ing easier and the success rate is growing. The subject was raised at a three-day fer- tility workshop this month, where the ex- periences of other countries were shared. In Singapore, only women who might lose their fertility through medical treat- ments such as chemotherapy are allowed to undergo the procedure. By contrast, social egg freezing allows those with no medical conditions to do so while they are in their late 20s or early 30s, helping them to defer motherhood until later in life. Several fertility experts said Singa- pore’s law should be amended to allow this practice, given that many women here are waiting longer before getting married. They said it might even reverse the decline in the Republic’s birth rate. All stressed that the best way is for women to conceive naturally at a young age. Dr Sheila Loh, clinical director of Raf- fles Fertility Centre, said: “However, there should be opportunities for those who feel they may get married only later on and would like to ‘preserve’ their fertil- ity.” She said women here should have this option, given the excellent results from major centres in various places around the world such as the United States, Cana- da and Spain. “This is especially so with our low fertility rate and the rise in age of marriage,” she added. Dr Loh Seong Feei, medical director of the Thomson Fertility Centre, said: “Lat- er marriages and motherhood translate in- to more subfertility issues as female age increases.” CONTINUED ON PAGE C2 THE eggs looked healthy enough, but Professor Tan Seang Lin needed to be sure. He was helping a woman to conceive through invitro-fertilisation (IVF) at the Montreal Reproductive Centre, and wanted to check that there were no defects. Fortunately for the patient, Canada allows eggs to be tested genetically. Prof Tan discovered that the two healthiest-looking ones had an extra chromosome each. This means the embryo would not have developed normally, leading to a miscarriage. All but one of the five eggs were defective. The woman, who is in her 40s, used the one that worked to become pregnant. Singapore does not allow genetic testing on eggs or embryos, unless there is a chance of hereditary diseases such as thalassemia. This is to avoid parents picking their child’s sex or scientists using genetic manipulation to produce a “super” baby. However, Prof Tan said rules can be put in to allow genetic testing only for defects. This could benefit women undergoing IVF, where the egg is fertilised outside the body and the resulting embryo implanted in the womb. This is because it would reduce the chance of doctors implanting a defective embryo which is miscarried, or grows into a baby with congenital problems. “You can’t tell a bad egg by just looking at it,” said Prof Tan. Dr Ng Soon Chye, a fertility expert in private practice, is all for genetic testing of embryos as it will “increase the efficiency” of the IVF treatment. “A 40-year-old has an 80 per cent risk of having problems with the embryo. That’s why pregnancy rates are very low,” he said. Making sure that there are no genetic defects could also make it easier to convince the woman to have only one embryo implanted, he added. Older patients who have failed once to give birth through IVF often have up to three embryos placed in their wombs. Multiple births tend to come with problems, and can mean babies needing time in intensive care. Dr Ng said laws can specify that only genetic defects are tested and not the gender of the baby. He said: “That’s all you really want to know – whether the embryo is good or not.” SALMA KHALIK Genetic testing can cut the risk of miscarriage Experts raise idea to let healthy women do so at the peak of their fertility Freezing eggs could reverse falling birth rate Fertility experts like Dr Ng Soon Chye believe that the genetic testing of eggs before IVF is carried out will reduce chances of miscarriage and babies born with congenital problems. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO HOME SPORT MONEY FRIDAY, MARCH 16 2012 C1
Transcript of More Forum letters online at TO ...thomsonfertility.com.sg/FileStore/product/19project...BY SALMA...
TOP THREE HOME STORIES ONLINEL All above-ground MRT stations nowhave platform screen doorsL Workplace fatalities up, most due tofalls, slips and trips from heightsL Naked video-chat scam couple facemore charges
Apple’s new iPad will still be released in
Singapore on March 16. Reports, blog
and photos in the Big Story.
Subscribe to and sync the ST Reader to
read the latest news offline while on the
go
More Forum letters online at www.straitstimes.com TO CONTACT THE NEWS DESK, PLEASE CALL 6319-5397
WHAT’S ONLINE FOLLOW AND ENGAGE ST ONLINE
News: www.straitstimes.com Connect: www.facebook.com/thestraitstimes Follow: twitter.com/stcom
BY SALMA KHALIK
HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
HEALTHY young women should be al-lowed to freeze their eggs for future usein a move that could help to reverse Singa-pore’s falling birth rate, say several fertili-ty experts.
When it comes to getting pregnantand delivering thriving babies, it is notthe mother’s age that matters but howold her eggs are. Freezing them while thewoman is at the peak of her fertility canallow her to put off having children untillater in life, perhaps when she has pur-sued a career or met the right man.
The technique is becoming increasing-ly popular in countries such as Canada,Australia and the Netherlands, where it isused to help those in their late 30s and40s give birth to healthy infants.
As the science improves, it is becom-ing easier and the success rate is growing.The subject was raised at a three-day fer-tility workshop this month, where the ex-periences of other countries were shared.
In Singapore, only women who mightlose their fertility through medical treat-ments such as chemotherapy are allowed
to undergo the procedure.By contrast, social egg freezing allows
those with no medical conditions to do sowhile they are in their late 20s or early30s, helping them to defer motherhooduntil later in life.
Several fertility experts said Singa-pore’s law should be amended to allowthis practice, given that many womenhere are waiting longer before gettingmarried. They said it might even reversethe decline in the Republic’s birth rate.
All stressed that the best way is forwomen to conceive naturally at a youngage.
Dr Sheila Loh, clinical director of Raf-fles Fertility Centre, said: “However,there should be opportunities for thosewho feel they may get married only lateron and would like to ‘preserve’ their fertil-ity.”
She said women here should have thisoption, given the excellent results frommajor centres in various places aroundthe world such as the United States, Cana-da and Spain. “This is especially so withour low fertility rate and the rise in age ofmarriage,” she added.
Dr Loh Seong Feei, medical director ofthe Thomson Fertility Centre, said: “Lat-er marriages and motherhood translate in-to more subfertility issues as female ageincreases.”
CONTINUEDON PAGE C2
THE eggs looked healthy enough, butProfessor Tan Seang Lin needed to besure.
He was helping a woman toconceive through invitro-fertilisation(IVF) at the Montreal ReproductiveCentre, and wanted to check that therewere no defects. Fortunately for thepatient, Canada allows eggs to betested genetically.
Prof Tan discovered that the twohealthiest-looking ones had an extrachromosome each. This means theembryo would not have developednormally, leading to a miscarriage.
All but one of the five eggs weredefective. The woman, who is in her40s, used the one that worked tobecome pregnant.
Singapore does not allow genetictesting on eggs or embryos, unless
there is a chance of hereditary diseasessuch as thalassemia. This is to avoidparents picking their child’s sex orscientists using genetic manipulationto produce a “super” baby.
However, Prof Tan said rules can beput in to allow genetic testing only fordefects. This could benefit womenundergoing IVF, where the egg isfertilised outside the body and theresulting embryo implanted in thewomb. This is because it would reducethe chance of doctors implanting adefective embryo which is miscarried,or grows into a baby with congenitalproblems.
“You can’t tell a bad egg by justlooking at it,” said Prof Tan.
Dr Ng Soon Chye, a fertility expertin private practice, is all for genetictesting of embryos as it will “increase
the efficiency” of the IVF treatment.“A 40-year-old has an 80 per cent
risk of having problems with theembryo. That’s why pregnancy ratesare very low,” he said.
Making sure that there are nogenetic defects could also make iteasier to convince the woman to haveonly one embryo implanted, he added.
Older patients who have failed onceto give birth through IVF often haveup to three embryos placed in theirwombs. Multiple births tend to comewith problems, and can mean babiesneeding time in intensive care.
Dr Ng said laws can specify thatonly genetic defects are tested and notthe gender of the baby. He said:“That’s all you really want to know –whether the embryo is good or not.”
SALMA KHALIK
Genetic testing can cut the risk of miscarriage
Experts raise idea to lethealthy women do so atthe peak of their fertility
Freezing eggscould reversefalling birth rate
Fertilityexperts likeDr Ng SoonChyebelieve thatthe genetictesting ofeggs beforeIVF iscarried outwill reducechances ofmiscarriageand babiesborn withcongenitalproblems.
ST PHOTO:DESMOND
FOO
HOMESPORTMONEY
FRIDAY, MARCH 16 2012 C1
kokjiaen
Rectangle
BY JUDITH TAN
SINGAPORE’S public cord blood bankwill need $6 million more to keep it go-ing in the next five to six years.
The seven-year-old Singapore CordBlood Bank is not government-fundedand not-for-profit, in that it does notcharge a fee for collecting and storingits donated cord blood units. So it raisesthis money itself.
Donations from philanthropists andorganisations such as the Khoo, Lee,
Shaw and SingHealth foundations haveseen it through thus far, but its chief ex-ecutive Steven Sobak fears that thesesources of funds will dry up.
“Like everyone, we worry about theeconomic downturn, but I’m most con-cerned that these philanthropic organisa-tions think we’re an old cause that canbe self-sustaining, so they move on to anew one,” he said.
He was speaking to The Straits Timeson the sidelines of a media conferenceto announce the blood bank’s 100thcord blood transplant done on a recipi-ent who is unrelated to the cord blooddonor.
The bank uses its funds to processand store its 8,000 units of blood ex-tracted from the umbilical cords donat-ed by women who have given birth.
It aims to have 10,000 units by early2015 at the latest.
Cord blood is rich in stem cells,which can mature into red or whiteblood cells or platelets. These can beused to replace diseased cells in patientswith blood cancers or other blood, genet-ic and metabolic disorders.
The bank’s 100th unrelated recipientof cord blood, for example, is an adultwith a blood disorder caused by a lack ofred blood cells. If it was left untreated,the patient would likely have faced bonemarrow failure.
The families of women who donatetheir cord blood to the bank have noclaim on the blood, which is available toanyone in need.
A patient who needs to draw downon the cord blood bank to treat an ill-ness has to bear the costs of services,tests and the retrieving of the blood.
Each retrieval of the cord blood costsup to $26,000; testing of each unit for atissue match costs $2,000.
Transplants can cost $80,000 to$160,000, though Singaporeans are eli-gible for a government subsidy amount-ing to half the cost.
When Teng Hong Yi, now 12, was di-agnosed with leukaemia in 2009, noneof his siblings was of a compatible mar-row type.
His mother Regina Soong, 33, saidthe family was relieved and gratefulwhen “a fully matched cord” was foundat the cord blood bank.
The first cord blood transplant wasfive years ago. Since then, the bank, cou-pled with its joining a global network ofcord blood banks, has facilitated unrelat-ed blood stem cell transplants for 45children and 55 adults here and abroad.
The growing number of Singaporeanwomen getting married after the age of30 caused fertility and birth rates toslump to their lowest level last year, hesaid.
Dr Suresh Nair, who has a clinic inMount Elizabeth Medical Centre, also not-ed that the safety of this technology hasbeen well established for more than 10years.
It is common knowledge that the oldera woman gets, the harder it becomes toconceive, and the higher the risk of a mis-carriage or some kind of abnormality inthe baby.
So those who are single but have everyintention of getting married later mightfind this option appealing. It could alsosuit women who are pursuing a careerand have pushed back starting a family.
However, there is some hassle in-volved as they are essentially goingthrough a cycle of in-vitro fertilisation(IVF), where the egg is harvested, thenfertilised outside the body and the result-ing embryo implanted in the womb.
In this case, however, it is stored for fu-ture use.
The technique is also not cheap, withone cycle of egg collection costing any-where between $5,000 and $15,000. Stor-ing the eggs, on the other hand, is relative-ly cheap at $250 to $300 a year.
A Scottish study released two yearsago found that women lose 88 per cent oftheir eggs by the time they are 30. Whenthey reach 40, they have only 3 per centleft. A woman is born with a fixed pool ofeggs. As the body picks the best at eachmenstrual cycle, those that are left tendto be of poorer quality.
But an older mother using an egg har-vested earlier in life faces only the same
risk as she did when the egg was frozen,said one of the speakers, Professor TanSeang Lin, medical director of the Mon-treal Reproductive Centre.
The latest techniques show thatthawed eggs have the same rate of fertili-sation as those which are freshly harvest-ed, he added. But because they are young-er, they are less likely to have abnormali-ties that often lead to miscarriages in old-er women.
[email protected]/ST.Salma
FROMPAGE C1
A FULL-TIME national serviceman fromthe Singapore Guards died yesterday.
Private Amirul Syahmi Bin Kamal, 20,was found unconscious in a toilet atBedok Camp at 5.30pm and sent toChangi General Hospital (CGH).
Efforts to resuscitate him en route tothe hospital failed and he was pro-nounced dead at 6.09 pm at CGH.
The Singapore Armed Forces said yes-terday that it is investigating the inci-dent.
An option for women tohave babies later in life
A SingaporeCord BloodBank technicianat work. Cordblood is rich instem cells andcan be used tohelp patientswith bloodcancers orother geneticand metabolicdisorders.
PHOTO: JOSEPHNAIR FOR THE
STRAITS TIMES
CEO of not-for-profitbank fears funds willdry up as donors moveon to new causes
20-year-old Guardsman dies
BIRTH DEFECTS INCREASE WITH AGE
Source: JAMA
1/6671/12001/9521/3781/1061/30
Risk of Down’sSyndrome
202530354045
Maternal ageat delivery (yr)
1/5261/4761/3851/1921/661/21
Risk of Chromosomalabnormality
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
FERTILITY DECLINES WITH AGE
20-24
Source: NEJM
>45
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Rate
of s
pont
aneo
us a
bort
ions
(%)
Fert
ility
rate
(per
1,00
0 m
arrie
d w
omen
)
25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44
Maternal age (yr)
Spontaneous abortions
Fertility
Cord bloodbank needs$6m lifeline
homeL
THE STRAITS TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 16 2012 PAGE C2
