|
 |
Thank you for voting for me and my blog(s) in the Wellsphere People's Health Blogger awards 2009, making the top 100 a second year in a row! Your confidence and comments are truly appreciated!
I wanted to share with you a trailer that was sent to me for a film made by Deirdre Fishel, a Brooklyn based independent documentary filmmaker. She recently made a personal film about her process (and that of three other women) to parent solo using donor sperm.
Apparently the film is nearly finished, but before she can put it out in the world where it can hopefully be a positive contribution to the changing family paradigm, they need to raise the last bit of money. For this purpose they have put a trailer on line and created the possibility for individuals to donate.
I would appreciate it if you would have a look at:
http://mindseyeprods.com/spermdonorx.htm
Frankly, I found it fascinating and well worth the few minutes it takes to watch. You have the option to donate if you would like as well.
Would love to hear your comments!
Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates, Quinton Aaron
Director: John Lee Hancock
Until I read the article, below, I have to admit that I never gave a second thought to what the poorest women in the world do during "that time of the month". I didn't think that girls would miss over 50 days of school a year because they had no sanitary supplies and it didn't cross my mind regarding the cost of buying sanitary products for these poor women. So I am bringing an awareness to all of us here in the USA...is there something WE can do to help these poor women? Read below to find out more.
Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
Affordable Sanitary Pads for World's Poorest Women
By:Anna Portela
A company called Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), together with researchers from North Carolina State University, have joined forces to create economical and reliable sanitary pads for millions of women across the globe, who cannot afford the regular feminine products currently available.
Because of their periods, some young women who live in poverty stricken places, are forced to miss up to 50 days of school in a year. This is due to the unavailability of feminine products. Elizabeth Scharpf is founder and CEO of SHE, an organization that is led by women whose goal is to manufacture and distribute affordable, environmentally friendly sanitary pads of good quality, to women in the developing world. What a fantastic idea and mission! Scharph says: “In some …areas of Africa, a month’s supply of imported sanitary pads cost more than a day’s worth of wages. Our goal is to create affordable pads that are…easily manufactured for a low cost at the local level-and the research being conducted at NC State helps us do that.”
The making of these sanitary napkins involves knowledge of areas such as paper and wood science, medical textiles, biomedical engineering and textile engineering chemistry.
The raw materials used in the process are banana stems. The stems undergo a series of chemical treatments that convert the fibers into soft, billowy materials that can absorb liquid.
These sanitary pads can be reproduced at the local level. Dr. Lucian Lucia from the Department of Wood and Paper at the university says that their role in the project was to show that it is possible to turn banana stem fiber into an absorbent material, and that the average person, and one who is not necessarily a scientist, would be able to create the sanitary pads. Local production and distribution means that the sanitary pads can be sold by community health workers for 30 percent less than the available brand.
Dr. Marian McCord, associate professor of textile engineering chemistry, science and biomedical engineering, maintains that the project is just one example of how a university can have an important impact on global health. Very true.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the project, and to SHE for its plans to distribute this sanitary pad to girls and women, so their lives can be made easier when that time of the month rolls around.
Thank God every day when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.
Basil Carpenter
Enjoy your day with Family and Friends!
All my best from:
Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
You don't have to be a part of a contest to be motivated to Make a Difference! October 24th is Make a Difference Day. Read more about it below!
Sharon
What is Make A Difference Day?
Make A Difference Day is the most encompassing national day of helping others -- a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone can participate. Created by USA WEEKEND Magazine, Make A Difference Day is an annual event that takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. The next event is Saturday, October 24, 2009.
Millions have participated. In 2008, 3 million people cared enough about their communities to volunteer on that day, accomplishing thousands of projects in hundreds of towns.
Your project can be as large or as small as you wish! Look around your community and see what needs to be done. Or let the Idea Generator help you find a project idea to help your community.
After participating Oct. 24, please send in an entry form so you will be counted among the millions of volunteers and be considered for an award.
Who takes part in Make A Difference Day?
Anyone. Young and old, individuals and groups, anyone can carry out a volunteer project that helps others. It might be as ambitious as collecting truckloads of clothing for the homeless, or as personal as spending an afternoon helping an elderly neighbor or relative. USA WEEKEND features volunteers and their projects in articles and photos.
How do awards help charitable efforts?
Each year in April, hundreds of good deeds done on Make A Difference Day are selected for honors, headlines and charitable donations.
$10,000 to 10 projects These 10 honorees will be spotlighted in an April 2010 issue, coinciding with National Volunteer week, and here on this Web site.
If you want to participate, just help someone else on the next Make A Difference Day, Saturday, October 24, 2009. If you volunteer regularly, great! On Make A Difference Day, give an extra push to your ongoing volunteer activity. For example, expand your regular tutoring by creating a special event for the students, such as a trip to the library where they volunteer, or the recruitment of new students.
If you don't volunteer now, here's an occasion to get started. You could clean up an elderly neighbor's house, or organize your block to replant and repair a local park. You could visit lonely, institutionalized kids or the elderly. You can join in on someone else's project listed on this Web site.
If you need more than one day for your project, still plan to do a good part of your volunteering on Make A Difference Day. For example, if you are rebuilding a community soup kitchen, you may have to do some wiring the week before or some painting the week after, but a significant part of the construction needs to take place on that Saturday.
If your volunteers are together only Monday-Friday (such as schools and workplaces), still plan to do a good part of your volunteering on Make A Difference Day. For example, if students collect food for the homeless during the school week, get a special group of students and teachers together on Saturday to hand-deliver the food to homeless people or a shelter. If it rains or snows, Make A Difference Day goes on. If your project is outdoors, have a contingency plan, or forge ahead.
If you are an employee of Gannett, HandsOn Network or USA WEEKEND carrier newspapers, you are invited to participate in Make A Difference Day, but you are ineligible for awards.
If you are selected to receive an award, you must sign releases. The top-10 honorees participate in an awards ceremony.
If you are not in America, we still invite you to participate. Thousands of employees of multinational corporations have volunteered on Make A Difference Day. A large group of Moskovites participated a few years ago. U.S. military personnel stationed overseas are regular Make A Difference Day volunteers too.
If you participate but don't send in an entry form, we can't consider you for awards and can't count you among the millions of people who simultaneously reach out to help others. Click here to read more: http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00e55060d36c883400e55060d36f8834/post/compose
Guide to the Day, creating and launching a project: Download a PDF brochure
PROJECT IDEAS, INCLUDING IDEA GENERATOR
Newman's Own provide $10,000 donations to the charities of each of 10 national honorees.
If you cannot participate on Saturday for religious reasons, you may do your project on Sunday.
Exclusive: By Alison Palmer 21/07/2009
These women all gave a body part to improve someone else’s life. Here they explain why they were so selfless
Every drop counts
Danielle Holmes, 32 lives with husband Richard in Muckamore, Belfast
“As my darling son, Riley, born 14 weeks early, lay in an incubator, hooked up to endless wires and tubes I felt so helpless. All I could do was feed his tiny 1lb 11oz body with my expressed breast milk.
Despite bleeds on the brain, collapsed lungs and other complications, he limped on. But four weeks in, with all the stress and heartache, my milk dried up. I was devastated. Doctors said formula milk would be too heavy, but there was a milk bank, breast milk donated by other mothers we could use.
Before I had Riley, I was repulsed by the thought but when you are in the situation we were in, knowing the best thing your very poorly child can have is breast milk, you’re eternally grateful for another mum’s donation. I believe the donated milk gave me another five weeks with Riley before he died after surgery for a bowel infection.
So two years later, when I gave birth to Kaya, I was determined to give something back. I contacted the milk bank at Fermanagh and they sent me special bottles and an insulated box and I began expressing.
Each day, as well as expressing for Kaya, I managed 120ml for the bank which I’d freeze. It doesn’t sound much but the tiniest babies only need a couple of millilitres, so every bit counts. I donated for seven months and hope to again now Cayden is five weeks old.
I mentioned having my long hair cut off on www.baby-greenhouse.co.uk and someone suggested I give it to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer. It’s amazing you can do something so small, so insignificant to you that can make such a massive difference to another person’s life.”
/ For details of milk banks, visit www.ukamb.org or call 0208 383 3559. To donate hair, see www.littleprincesses.org.uk or www.locksoflove.org
How could I deny someone a life?
Leanne Flanagan, 22, of Cardiff
“I opened the letter and started to read. It said: ‘To my dear donor. Thank you for giving me the gift of life. My family and I cannot thank you enough. You will never know what you’ve done for me.’
Tears rolled down my cheeks.
When I signed up to be a bone marrow donor, I gave a blood sample and filled in some paperwork but I never thought I’d be a match.
Then, on my birthday the following year, in November 2007, I received a letter saying I was a potential match. I had some blood taken, then a fortnight later I got a letter to say I was a perfect match.
My family weren’t very happy because they were worried about health implications. But for me it was clear. There was someone out there, probably with leukaemia that would ultimately kill them, who knew there was a donor who could save them.
How could I deny them a chance of life?
I opted to give bone marrow through ‘peripheral blood stem cell donation’. It was simple.
For three days a nurse injected me with a special substance to boost my stem cells. Then on the fourth day the Anthony Nolan Trust paid for us to go to London University College Hospital
I had a needle in each arm; one took blood out into a machine that collected the cells, the other put the ‘empty’ blood back in. I felt tired but nothing more.
I knew the whole process was anonymous so, when I received the letter via the trust I was bowled over.
I’ll never know the recipient but just to know there’s someone out there, still hopefully living a happy, healthy life because of me is just wonderful.”
To join the register or to find out more about the process see www.anthonynolan.org.uk or call 0207 284 1234.
It was very humbling
Cathy Sidaway, 29, a business development manager, lives in York
“I was leafing through a paper a couple of years ago when I saw an advert from an anonymous couple who needed an egg donor. I thought I could be that person. It all came at a very poignant time. My friend had suffered multiple miscarriages and a relative has endometriosis and was struggling to get pregnant.
I spent some time on the National Gamete Donation Trust’s (NGDT) forum for those considering donation and called the number.
I had extensive counselling. It threw up all sorts of emotions. I was asked how I’d feel telling my own future children that somewhere they may have a half-sibling. I hope they and any future partner would understand. I also had to go through various medical tests.
It was almost a year by the time, last February, I finally donated via Guy’s Hospital, London
They collected 14 eggs. It was a little uncomfortable but not awful. Sadly the recipient hasn’t got pregnant yet but I’m hopeful it will work out for her soon.
I donated once more and I’m just about to donate again. I met the woman online and was only going to tell her about the process, but we got on so well I offered to be her donor.
I thought I’d donate four times, but we’ll see. All I know is I can give a woman a shot at motherhood. That’s a very humbling experience.”
/ For more information see www.ngdt.co.uk or call the helpline on 0845 226 9193.
I knew it could save a life
Rebecca Khan, 29, lives in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, with husband, Kyle, 32, and children, Elena, 23 months and Leah, seven weeks. She works for the NHS – and in recruitment.
“I knew blood in the umbilical cord was live-saving through my work with the blood and transfusion service. I also know it’s hard to find matches for the ethnic community. So, being half-Greek with a half-Jamaican husband, I was desperate to donate. Sadly not all hospitals have a cord blood donation team but mine, Barnet General, does. It wasn’t long before I had a call from the donation team who took me through all the details and helped me fill in a consent form that I kept in my pregnancy notes.
I was devastated when, after Elena’s birth, they hadn’t been able to retrieve a full sample. There wasn’t enough blood in the cord.
So I made sure all the paperwork was in order again when I gave birth to Leah and hoped that this time they’d be successful. They were.
I had an elective caesarean so I didn’t even see when they took the cord away. But it doesn’t matter how you give birth, you can still donate.
Once they cut the cord and establish mum and baby are OK the cord blood team take the placenta and cord. The cells in cord blood can be sent all over the world to help cure patients of life-threatening diseases such as blood cancers and immune disorders.
It’s wonderful that something so useless to you could save a life.”
/For more info about hospitals with a cord blood team or to register to be a donor visit http://cord.blood.co.uk or call 0800 783 5870 or 020 8437 1740.
Newlywed couples in Lebanon are up against big pressure to start a family. With an 18.7 percent national infertility rate, that can be a problem. But one bank is offering fertility loans as a solution. Ben Gilbert reports.
Ben Gilbert: When Maher Mazher first heard that his fellow Lebanese were more infertile than the average person, the marketing professor started doing his homework on married couples.
Maher Mazher: We have done a quantitative research on 600 person, showing that 18.7 percent couldn't have babies.
Mazher, who's also a marketing manager at Lebanon's first national bank, saw dollar signs. He calculated that each year, around 10,000 couples in Lebanon undergo fertility treatments of some kind. Mazher's research resulted in this:
Lebanese sociologists have noted the pressure society exerts on newlyweds to have children here. Mazher says Lebanese families can be overbearing:
Mazher: If after three or five or six months, they don't see that the lady's not pregnant, they start asking, "Is it she or you? Are you trying? When are you trying?"
And adoption is not an option for most Lebanese. It's banned for Muslims, and Christians frown on it. Infertility is also grounds for divorce here.
But now Mazher says his loan can help. Couples can borrow $7,000 at 5 percent interest. It can be used to finance in vitro fertilization surgery or fertility "treatments."
Mazher says the bank isn't looking to profit off the loans. He says they are "humanitarian," and good marketing for FNB Bank.
Mazher: Because this is the best way to touch their heart. Each time they would look at their baby and the baby would smile, they will remember FNB. It is the best way to get into their life.
Some Lebanese have objected to Mazher's fertility loan. But Mazher says in the ad campaign's first week, his bank received more than 100 calls a day.
In Beirut, I'm Ben Gilbert for Marketplace.
|
I receive the DAILY OM and I wanted to share this one with you! Enjoy and Happy Sunday!
With all that takes place in our lives, it can sometimes be easy to overlook the fact that we’re part of something greater than ourselves—a collective consciousness, the Universe, a greater cause. Because of our tendency to forget this, we might make decisions in our lives that don’t reflect that responsibility that comes with this belonging. All too often, we focus just on the short-term, tangible gain to ourselves without worrying about its consequences. Other times, we may discard the greater cause because it seems like “hard work.” The challenge is to expand our minds so that we transcend the distinction between self and others, so we are aware of how our choices and actions can impact a greater cause. Click here for "Waiting for Autumn", the new book from DailyOM co-founder Scott Blum
What do you think? Want more DailyOM? |
Share the OM:
A Year of Guided Meditations is a series of 52 guided meditations featuring profoundly positive principles and ways of becoming your highest self. Every week for a year, you will receive a new guided meditation spoken in a soothing voice along with a beautiful musical background and stunning video images of a nature. These high-powered "Be-Attitudes" are ideals and values to strive for.
For more information visit DailyOM.com/courses
From the Library: More DailyOM: |
 | ||
|
The Hope Uncorked wine tasting kit is a grassroots awareness campaign dedicated to helping cancer survivors fulfill their parenthood dreams. | ||
|
| Fertile Hope 65 Broadway, Suite 603 New York, New York 10006 US |
 |
Democracy is…the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. 
— Harry Emerson Fosdick
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday came out with a draft Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2008, that said the surrogate baby of a separated or divorced couple will remain their “legitimate child” if both parties had consented to assisted reproductive technology (ART) to have the baby. The baby’s birth certificate will have the name(s) of the genetic parents/parent.
The draft Bill is expected to be tabled in Parliament’s winter session.
A foreigner or foreign couple not resident in India, or a non-resident Indian individual or couple seeking surrogacy in India, will have to appoint a local guardian who will be legally responsible for the care of the surrogate mother during and after pregnancy until the baby is delivered to the parent/parents or the local guardian.
“No woman under 21 years of age and over 45 years of age shall be eligible to act as a surrogate mother under this Act,” says the draft, adding, “Provided that no woman shall act as a surrogate for more than three successful live births in her life.” No woman shall donate oocytes more than six times in her life, with not less than a three-month interval between oocyte pick-ups.
Gynaeologists say the absence of a legal framework so far has resulted in college students ‘selling’ semen and eggs for pocket money.
Insurance in the news again...and I feel it will be for a good long time when infertility is the hot topic....but it looks like some company's are attempting to help...what do you think?
Sharon
| Infertility Consumer Advocates Defend Honda’s Insurance Practices Infertility consumer advocates defend Honda’s insurance practices. |
| Publish Date: 2008-09-22 |
|
Although it's Labor Day I wanted to make sure that all of you reading this blog who are in the ART field have registered to attend the ASRM meeting in San Francisco! I hope to see YOU there!
Have a great holiday!
Sharon
ASRM 2008 Annual Meeting Register Here!
American Society for Reproductive Medicine "Bridge to the Future of Reproductive Medicine"
 |
Tuesday, August 5th 2008, 12:17 AM
Watts/News Anthony DeGiulio gets hug from recipient Barbara Asofsky.
Daily News One good Samaritan determined to donate a kidney to anyone who needed it set off a chain reaction that let four patients without a compatible organ donor get transplants.
The four-way kidney swap at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia is believed to be the largest performed in the city. The July 24, all-day endeavor involved nearly 50 clinicians working in eight operating rooms.
"It's easily the greatest thing I've ever done in my life, and also the easiest decision I ever made," said Anthony DeGiulio, 32, the altruistic donor who got the idea from a TV program.
"It was a dream of mine to save someone's life, and this is the only way I could come up with to do it," explained DeGiulio, a securities trader from the Dutchess County town of Red Hook.
Here's how it worked: Three area patients with kidney disease had family members who wanted to donate an organ to them but couldn't because their blood types didn't match.
DeGiulio was a match for one of those patients, Barbara Asofsky, a 57-year-old nursery school teacher from Wantagh, L.I. She got his kidney.
Asofsky's husband, Douglas, 56, was a match for Alina Binder, a 22-year-old Brooklyn College student.
Binder's dad, Michael, 46, was compatible with Andrew Novak, a 42-year-old telecommunications field technician from Poughkeepsie.
And Novak's sister, Laura Nicholson, 40, was a suitable donor for a patient on the waiting list, Luther Johnson, 31, a hotel kitchen steward from Harlem.
None of them knew who their donor or recipient would be before the surgeries, but the donors didn't have to think long about whether they'd give their kidney to a stranger. "I didn't care who it would go to; I knew it would save a life - and save Barbara's life," said Douglas Asofsky, a bank veep.
Kidney swaps are becoming an increasingly important option for patients facing a years-long wait for a donor organ, said Dr. Lloyd Ratner, director of renal transplantation at the hospital. There are 76,650 people in the U.S. waiting for donor kidneys with 6,673 in New York, officials said.
The swaps, also known as paired exchanges, have been responsible for 373 kidney transplants in the U.S., the United Network for Organ Sharing said.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins University performed a six-way exchange in April. They believe that a national registry of living kidney donors - including those willing to donate to strangers - could result in 6,000 transplants a year.
Some of his friends and family thought DeGiulio was "nuts" to donate his kidney, he said. "I wish it was more common," he noted. "I sacrificed three days of my life, and this woman gets her life back. If I could feel like this every day, I'd do it any day of the week."
Just type in your zip code and from the lowest to the highest gas prices show up for your area.
This has been a (Surrogacy 101) community service announcement!
Sharon
www.InfertilityAnswers.net
Recent Comments