Latest news with #conception
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Harvard study casts new light on why some couples conceive all girls or boys
Harvard study casts new light on why some couples conceive all girls or boys A Harvard study has revealed a link between a woman's age and the likelihood of giving birth to multiple children of the same sex. Siwen Wang, a PhD student in nutritional epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, began researching the topic after noticing a trend in her own family. Her mother was one of three sisters and a younger brother, while her father had two brothers and no sisters. 'I was wondering whether it's just pure chance or if there was some special biology underlying this phenomenon,' she told the Boston Globe. Her questions led to a study published July 18 in Science Advances by her and seven others. The researchers analyzed 146,064 pregnancies from 58,000 US nurses across nearly six decades and discovered that in some families the odds are not so random. The NIH-funded Nurses' Health Study studied the subjects between 1956 and 2015 and found that some families were more likely to have children of the same sex. Researchers found that maternal age played a key role in the sex of the baby. A Harvard study has revealed a link between a woman's age and the likelihood of giving birth to children of the same sex Siwen Wang (pictured), a PhD student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, began researching the topic after noticing a trend in her own family. Her mother was one of three sisters and a younger brother, while her father had two brothers and no sisters The research found that women who had their first child at age 29 or older were significantly more likely to have multiple children of the same sex. 'It's like moving the needle from 50 to 60 percent,' Dr. Bernard Rosner, a co-author of the study told the outlet. 'I don't think you could use any of this information to definitively predict whether a specific person will have a male or female offspring, but ... it's not necessarily random probability.' The findings also showed that women who already had three children of the same sex were more likely to have a fourth of the same gender. The study showed a 61 percent likelihood for boys and 58 percent for girls. 'If you've had two girls or three girls and you're trying for a boy, you should know your odds are not 50-50,' Jorge Chavarro, professor of nutrition and epidemiology and author of the study, told the Washington Post. The research found that women who had their first child at age 29 or older were significantly more likely to have multiple children of the same sex 'You're more likely than not to have another girl.' 'We don't know why these genes would be associated with sex at birth, but they are, and that opens up new questions,' Chavarro added. Paternal influences on the child's sex were not entirely explored in the study. Researchers did not include detailed data on fathers so they couldn't analyze how paternal factors might influence the sex of children. Despite, the lack of research on the paternal side, Wang did mention that older maternal age is most highly correlated with older paternal age.
Sky News
09-07-2025
- Health
- Sky News
Abortion rate hits record high, figures show
A record high of almost three in 10 conceptions in England and Wales ended in a legal abortion in 2022, official figures show. The percentage was 29.7% - up from 26.5% a year earlier and 20.8% in 2012, according to the Office For National Statistics (ONS). The figure has generally been increasing for all age groups since 2015, the ONS added. Lengthy waiting times for some forms of contraception and financial struggles could explain the rise, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said. The figures were described as "heartbreaking" by the Christian Action Research And Education charity, which added that it was "especially painful" if poverty was a driving factor. There were 247,703 conceptions leading to a legal abortion in 2022, a 13.1% rise on the 218,923 recorded in 2021, ONS data showed. Figures published last year by the government showed the number of abortions in 2022 for women in England and Wales was at a record 251,377. The ONS said its data was based on the estimated date of conception, while government figures are based on the date of the abortion, leading to a difference in the overall numbers. Girls aged under 16 remained the age group with the highest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion, at 61%. Women aged between 30 and 34 had the lowest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion in 2022, at around a fifth, or 20.5%. The age group with the highest number of conceptions was women in their early 30s, at 249,991. Women aged over 40 had a conception rate of 17.2 per 1,000 women in 2022, slightly below the record high of 17.3 per 1,000 women in 2021, the ONS said. Katherine O'Brien, from BPAS, said emergency contraception "remains an underutilised resource". "The government has committed to improving access via pharmacies, but we need to see this medication reclassified so that it can be sold in a wider range of outlets, including supermarkets, so that women can access it as swiftly as possible when needed," she said.
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Yahoo
ChatGPT Is Helping Women Get Pregnant
Among the questions Mandy Hoskinson asked ChatGPT while she was trying to conceive a child: How long, on average, does it take 32-year-olds to get pregnant? Is it helpful to elevate your legs after sex? Is eating special foods beneficial for conception? This was all last year. Now, Hoskinson is holding her one-month-old daughter, whose existence she credits to ChatGPT. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot which was released in 2022, has seemingly seeped into every area of human life. While some people utilize the service for simple tasks such as drafting grocery lists or brainstorming ideas for work, others are falling in love with ChatGPT or being led into spiritual delusions. Now, ChatGPT is being utilized for the most basic of human functions: conception. People who are hoping to become pregnant are turning to the chat bot for advice, tips, and affirmations during their pregnancy journeys. They're changing their conception plans based on ChatGPT's advice and asking it to psychically channel their future baby, despite privacy concerns over uploading sensitive health information into a chat bot. More from Rolling Stone Elon Musk's Grok Chatbot Goes Full Nazi, Calls Itself 'MechaHitler' Troll Tried to Contact Foreign Ministers Using AI Marco Rubio Republicans Keep Making Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' Worse When Hoskinson, who lives in California, decided she wanted to start trying for a baby, she was overwhelmed by the amount of information there was. Reading about conception, especially online, is a minefield of acronyms – like TTC (trying to conceive), FTM (first-time mom) and DPO (days post-ovulation) – anTTCd what seemed like insider knowledge. Though Hoskinson was recording her menstrual cycle in a tracking app, she felt like she was missing something. Enter ChatGPT. She asked the bot to explain conception, with a specific focus on ovulation. 'I was able to ask my dumb questions in a bunch of different ways and that helped me understand the science, which helped me to have a baby,' Hoskinson says. 'I found understanding the science of conception way easier [this way] than just navigating through books and the crappy articles that Google gives you these days.' Through her lessons with ChatGPT, she realized the period tracking app she was using was estimating her ovulation window wrong. She adjusted based on ChatGPT's advice; that very month, she became pregnant. Of her daughter, Hoskinson says with a laugh, 'she was conceived with ChatGPT.' Any person who has tried to conceive a child knows that the two-week wait – which refers to the period of time between ovulation and either the start of your period or the confirmation of pregnancy – is nerve wracking. It's during the two-week wait that Danielle Lacanaria, 28, turns most to ChatGPT. Lacanaria reports her symptoms to ChatGPT and asks whether they are more closely aligned with an incoming menstrual cycle or the early stages of pregnancy. 'I look for interpretations of symptoms,' Lacanaria says. She has taken the bot's advice to heart, even changing her diet and supplement routine based on ChatGPT's recommendations. Lacanaria lives in a rural part of Michigan, where she says it once took her six months to even see an obstetrician. 'I wouldn't say ChatGPT is my first choice but is easier [given] how accessible it is.' Though it's tempting to take ChatGPT's answers and recommendations as well-researched facts, there are concerns about the platform. AI-powered bots are notoriously unreliable, often bungling the answers to even simple questions, and often seem to be simply telling users what they want to hear — one study last year found that 52 percent of ChatGPT's answers contained some level of misinformation. Lacanaria, who is still trying to get pregnant, says the bot has often given her incorrect information, leaving her double-checking its work. Still, she says, 'there's some friendly comfort there. And it's brought me a lot of nuggets where I can go and chew on it or talk to my doctor or Google it myself.' Aparna Sridhar, a doctor and professor in clinical obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA, can see why patients are drawn to ChatGPT but she worries about the accuracy of using it to track periods, recommending dedicated apps instead. 'Track your menstrual cycle and find an app which is known to work with that data,' she says, as they are often designed with the consultation of medical professionals. There's also the concern of privacy, both with period-tracking apps and chat bots — in a post-Roe country in which reproductive rights are vanishing, what does it mean to tell ChatGPT the details of your menstrual cycle? In April, a woman in Georgia was arrested following a miscarriage; though the charges were eventually dropped, experts point to the case as evidence of the increasing criminalization of pregnancy. As reporting from The Marshall Project notes, there are seven states in which miscarriages and stillbirths have been investigated by the criminal legal system in recent years. Tom Subak, the founder of Reimagination Lab and former Chief Strategy Officer at Planned Parenthood, says there are very real privacy risks when entrusting the details of your reproductive health to ChatGPT. 'Could [the data] be used by a hostile prosecutor who is going on a fishing expedition for women who have had miscarriages? Absolutely,' Subak says. 'As is the case with almost any free online platform, you are trading some level of your anonymity and most personal health details for use of that app.' It can be jarring to realize how much ChatGPT knows about you (though the website says users can choose to turn off the bot's 'memory' feature). A few months ago, there was a trend going around on social media where users prompted ChatGPT to create a cartoon of them. Hoskinson did it; her cartoon was pregnant, despite the fact that many of her family members still didn't know. 'That really creeped me out,' Hoskinson says. But now that she is a mother, she can't help but ask the bot questions about her infant daughter. 'I asked it about baby acne — how long is it there? Will it damage her skin when she's an adult? Blah, blah, blah. It can keep the conversation going and it knows the context of other things that we've talked about.' Trying to conceive can be a tumultuous process and ChatGPT seems to be capable of both acknowledging that reality and offering comfort. 'It asks if I need an affirmation for the month,' says Megan Braiman, a 37-year-old in New York who is hoping to get pregnant. 'It tells me to believe in myself, that it'll happen when it's meant to happen, divine timing, all the silly things people tell you anyway.' She pauses. 'It's not like it's anything profound.' Still, the reassurance feels good. ChatGPT functions as a 'spirit baby guide' for Maura McCarthy, who is in her forties and lives in Los Angeles. McCarthy, who is going through IVF, asked the bot to psychically channel her future baby and tell her what her baby needs her to do in order to be born. 'It tells me my spirit baby is closer than I think,' she says. As McCarthy talks about ChatGPT playing psychic, she is of two minds. On one hand, she knows she's talking to a bot. On the other, it's soothing to believe in something as she traverses the difficult terrain of conception. 'It has given me comfort. I do it when I'm lying in bed at night and I can go to sleep after I get that message.' Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
The Independent
09-07-2025
- General
- The Independent
Proportion of conceptions ending in legal abortion, by local area
Here is a list of the proportion of conceptions in 2022 that ended in a legal abortion in each local authority area in England and Wales. The figures have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and are based on the woman's estimated date of conception and area of usual residence. The list is ordered by the proportion of conceptions that led to an abortion, starting with the highest. Liverpool 40.3%Brighton & Hove 40.3%Lambeth 38.4%Halton 38.1%Knowsley 38.0% Southwark 37.9%Portsmouth 37.8%Salford 36.5%Nottingham 36.5%Torbay 36.5%Coventry 36.3%Solihull 35.9%Manchester 35.8%Wirral 35.6%Wolverhampton 35.2%Islington 34.9%Canterbury 34.8%Sefton 34.7%St Helens 34.6%Middlesbrough 34.5%Norwich 34.5% Westminster 34.4%Enfield 34.4% Southampton 34.4%Tameside 34.3%Denbighshire 34.2%Rhondda Cynon Taf 34.2%North Warwickshire 34.1%Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole 34.1%Warrington 34.0%Sandwell 33.9%Isle of Anglesey 33.9%West Lancashire 33.8%Rother 33.8%Redcar & Cleveland 33.7%Welwyn Hatfield 33.7%Camden 33.4%Lewisham 33.4%Wrexham 33.4%Hammersmith & Fulham 33.3%Haringey 33.3%Eastbourne 33.3%Hyndburn 33.2%Southend-on-Sea 33.2%Croydon 33.2%Greenwich 33.2%Medway 33.1%Thanet 33.1%Conwy 33.1%Merthyr Tydfil 33.0%Leeds 32.9%Nuneaton & Bedworth 32.9%Bexley 32.9%Folkestone & Hythe 32.9%Chorley 32.6%Fylde 32.6%South Ribble 32.6%Dudley 32.6%Gwynedd 32.4%Preston 32.3%Newcastle upon Tyne 32.2%Kensington & Chelsea 32.2%Reading 32.2%Swansea 32.2%Ceredigion 32.1%Flintshire 32.0%Mansfield 31.9%Gosport 31.9%Blackpool 31.8%Rochdale 31.8%Leicester 31.7%Fareham 31.7%Hackney & City of London 31.6%Havant 31.6%Oldham 31.5%Thurrock 31.4%Brentwood 31.4%Rossendale 31.3%York 31.2%Doncaster 31.2% Stevenage 31.2%Telford & Wrekin 31.1%Caerphilly 31.1%Charnwood 30.9%Basildon 30.9%Barking & Dagenham 30.9%Runnymede 30.9%Dorset 30.9%Hartlepool 30.8%South Tyneside 30.8%Birmingham 30.8%Broxbourne 30.8%Dover 30.7%North East Lincolnshire 30.6%Ashfield 30.6%Walsall 30.6%Castle Point 30.6%Havering 30.6%Hastings 30.6%Gedling 30.5%Tower Hamlets 30.5%New Forest 30.5%Bristol 30.5%Neath Port Talbot 30.5%Newcastle-under-Lyme 30.4%Burnley 30.3%Kirklees 30.3%Isle of Wight 30.3%Milton Keynes 30.3%Gravesham 30.3%Sunderland 30.2%Bury 30.2%Wigan 30.1%Newham 30.1%Wyre 30.0%Stockton-on-Tees 29.9%Cheshire West & Chester 29.9%Epping Forest 29.9%Dartford 29.9%Calderdale 29.8%Wakefield 29.8%Wandsworth 29.8%North Northamptonshire 29.7%Hillingdon 29.7%Cannock Chase 29.6%Bromley 29.6%Lewes 29.6%Oxford 29.6%Pembrokeshire 29.6%Blaby 29.5%Teignbridge 29.5%Westmorland & Furness 29.4%South Staffordshire 29.4%Bridgend 29.4%North Tyneside 29.3%Brent 29.3%Cornwall & Isles of Scilly 29.3%Lancaster 29.2%Shropshire 29.2%Bromsgrove 29.2%Tendring 29.2%Three Rivers 29.2%Tamworth 29.1%Maldon 29.1%Trafford 29.0%Ribble Valley 29.0%West Northamptonshire 29.0%Bassetlaw 29.0%Harlow 29.0%Hounslow 29.0%Epsom & Ewell 29.0%Gateshead 28.9%Colchester 28.9%High Peak 28.8%Lichfield 28.8%Rugby 28.8%Worcester 28.8%Blaenau Gwent 28.8%Cumberland 28.7%Sutton 28.7%Chichester 28.7%Powys 28.7%Staffordshire Moorlands 28.6%East Hertfordshire 28.6%Adur 28.6%Worthing 28.6%Plymouth 28.6%Warwick 28.5%North Lincolnshire 28.4%Barnsley 28.3%Hertsmere 28.3%Ealing 28.3%Torfaen 28.3%Bolton 28.2%Broxtowe 28.2%Dacorum 28.2%Somerset 28.2%Rochford 28.1%Northumberland 28.0%North Norfolk 28.0%Malvern Hills 27.9%Swale 27.9%Exeter 27.9%Stoke-on-Trent 27.8%Bedford 27.8%Spelthorne 27.8%Newark & Sherwood 27.7%Stockport 27.6%Erewash 27.6%Stafford 27.6%Redbridge 27.5%Tonbridge & Malling 27.5%Carmarthenshire 27.5%Lincoln 27.4%Stratford-on-Avon 27.4%Peterborough 27.4%Merton 27.4%Slough 27.4%Oadby and Wigston 27.3%West Berkshire 27.3%Hull 27.2%Windsor & Maidenhead 27.2%Harborough 27.1%Cambridge 27.1%Harrow 27.1%Wealden 27.1%Cardiff 27.0%Pendle 26.9%Sheffield 26.9%North East Derbyshire 26.9%Hinckley & Bosworth 26.9%Fenland 26.9%Kingston upon Thames 26.9%Reigate & Banstead 26.9%Tandridge 26.9%Arun 26.9%Rushmoor 26.8%Bath & North East Somerset 26.8%Swindon 26.8%Breckland 26.7%Waltham Forest 26.7%Ashford 26.7%Crawley 26.7%North Somerset 26.7%Melton 26.5%Chelmsford 26.5%North West Leicestershire 26.4%Wychavon 26.4%Wyre Forest 26.4%Central Bedfordshire 26.4%Great Yarmouth 26.4%Sevenoaks 26.4%North Yorkshire 26.3%Newport 26.3%Cheshire East 26.1%Derby 26.1%Monmouthshire 26.1%Rutland 26.0%Braintree 26.0%Maidstone 26.0%Blackburn with Darwen 25.9%East Staffordshire 25.9%Eastleigh 25.9%Mid Devon 25.9%Bradford 25.8%Redditch 25.8%King's Lynn & West Norfolk 25.8%South Gloucestershire 25.8%North Hertfordshire 25.7%Barnet 25.7%Wokingham 25.7%Buckinghamshire 25.7%Basingstoke & Deane 25.7%Wiltshire 25.7%County Durham 25.6%Bracknell Forest 25.6%Cheltenham 25.5%Luton 25.4%Gloucester 25.4%Rushcliffe 25.3%East Hampshire 25.3%Cherwell 25.3%Broadland 25.2%East Devon 25.1%South Kesteven 25.0%Ipswich 25.0%Herefordshire 24.9%South Derbyshire 24.8%Darlington 24.7%Watford 24.6%Babergh 24.6%Hart 24.6%Derbyshire Dales 24.5%Winchester 24.5%West Devon 24.5%North Devon 24.4%South Norfolk 24.2%West Oxfordshire 24.2%Guildford 24.2%Forest of Dean 24.2%Tunbridge Wells 24.1%Torridge 24.1%East Riding of Yorkshire 24.0%Huntingdonshire 23.9%Surrey Heath 23.9%Amber Valley 23.8%St Albans 23.8%Richmond upon Thames 23.7%Vale of White Horse 23.7%Mole Valley 23.7%Chesterfield 23.6%East Suffolk 23.6%Test Valley 23.6%Elmbridge 23.6%South Holland 23.4%South Hams 23.4%Woking 23.3%West Lindsey 23.2%Mid Sussex 23.1%Uttlesford 23.0%South Oxfordshire 22.8%Rotherham 22.5%Vale of Glamorgan 22.5%Cotswold 21.9%West Suffolk 21.6%Boston 21.5%East Lindsey 21.5%Stroud 21.5%Waverley 21.4%Horsham 21.2%North Kesteven 21.1%Tewkesbury 21.1%Mid Suffolk 21.0%Bolsover 20.2%South Cambridgeshire 20.0%East Cambridgeshire 18.6%
The Independent
09-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Figures show record high of almost three in 10 conceptions ending in abortion
The percentage of conceptions leading to legal abortions in England and Wales has reached a record high, according to official statistics. Almost three in 10 conceptions ended in legal abortions in the two nations in 2022, up from around two in 10 a decade earlier. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the percentage of conceptions leading to legal abortion was 29.7% in 2022, up from 26.5% a year earlier and 20.8% in 2012. The percentage has generally been increasing for all age groups since 2015, the statistics body said. There were 247,703 conceptions leading to a legal abortion in 2022, a 13.1% rise on the 218,923 recorded in 2021. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) said lengthy waiting times for some forms of contraception as well as financial struggles faced by many could explain the rise. Girls aged under 16 remained the age group with the highest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion, at 61.0%. Women aged between 30 and 34 years old had the lowest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion in 2022, at around a fifth or 20.5%. The age group with the highest number of conceptions was women in their early 30s, at 249,991. Women aged over 40 years had a conception rate of 17.2 per 1,000 women in 2022, slightly below the record high of 17.3 per 1,000 women in 2021, the ONS said. Katherine O'Brien, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), said women are facing 'significant barriers' in access to contraception, including long waiting times and difficulties securing appointments. She added: 'At Bpas, we regularly hear from women who are seeking an abortion after falling pregnant while waiting for repeat Pill prescriptions or coil insertions. 'Emergency contraception, while not a silver bullet to unplanned pregnancy rates, remains an underutilised resource in this country, with the majority of women not accessing this vital back-up method after an episode of unprotected sex. 'The Government has committed to improving access via pharmacies, but we need to see this medication reclassified so that it can be sold in a wider range of outlets, including supermarkets, so that women can access it as swiftly as possible when needed.' She also noted interest rate hikes and increases in cost of living in 2022, which she said might have led to women and their partners having to make 'sometimes tough decisions around continuing or ending a pregnancy'. She added: 'No woman should have to end a pregnancy she would otherwise have continued purely for financial reasons, and no woman should become pregnant because our healthcare system is failing to provide women with the contraception they want, when they need it.' The proportion of conceptions ending in legal abortion in 2022 varied in different parts of the country, the data shows. Across all age groups, the figure was highest in north-west England (32.6%) and lowest in eastern England (27.3%). But the gap was much larger among younger age groups, with the figures for 16-17 year-olds ranging from 48.2% of conceptions in Yorkshire/Humber to 66.2% in London. Among 18-19 year-olds, the proportion ranges from 48.1% of conceptions in north-east England to 62.6% in London. The lowest regional percentages were in the 30-34 age group, where the figure dipped as low as 18.5% for eastern England and 18.0% for south-west England. At a local level, Liverpool and Brighton & Hove had the joint highest proportion of conceptions ending in legal abortion in 2022 across all ages (40.3%), followed by the London borough of Lambeth (38.4%) and Halton in Cheshire (38.1%). East Cambridgeshire had the lowest percentage (18.6%), followed by South Cambridgeshire (20.0%), Bolsover in Derbyshire (20.2%) and Mid Suffolk (21.0%). Government statistics published last year covering 2022 showed the number of abortions for women living in England and Wales was at a record level, having risen by almost a fifth in a year. There were 251,377 abortions for women resident in the two nations in 2022, official figures from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) showed. This was the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced almost 60 years ago and was a rise of 17% on the 2021 figure, the department said. Taking medications at home, known as telemedicine, was the most common procedure, accounting for 61% of all abortions in 2022. This was up nine percentage points since 2021, the DHSC said. Temporary measures put in place during the pandemic approving the use of both pills for early medical abortion at home, without the need to first attend a hospital or clinic, were made permanent in England and Wales in 2022.
