Reproductive Capacity Of Women Research Articles

Infertility, reproductive timing and ‘cure’ in families affected by Turner Syndrome

This article discusses the influence of a chromosome condition affecting women's reproductive capacity, Turner Syndrome (TS), on affected women's social timing, examining the strategic decisions that are made within families in relation to reproduction, to navigate these disruptions. Based on photo elicitation interviews with 19 women with TS and 11 mothers of girls with TS in the UK, it presents findings from an under-researched topic, TS and reproductive choices.In a social context where motherhood is not only desirable, but expected (Suppes, 2020), the social imaginary of infertility anticipates a future of unhappiness and rejection, an undesirable condition that should be avoided. Accordingly, mothers of girls with TS often expect that their daughter will want to have children. Infertility diagnosed in childhood has a distinctive impact on reproductive timing, as future options may be anticipated for years. This article uses the concept of ‘crip time’ (Kafer, 2013) to explore how women with TS and mothers of girls with TS experience temporal misfitting based on a childhood diagnosis of infertility, and manage, resist and re-frame this to minimise stigma. The ‘curative imaginary’ (Kafer, 2013), a social norm where disabled people are expected to desire a cure for their condition, is used as an analogy for infertility, describing how mothers of girls with TS respond to social pressure to plan for their daughter's reproductive future.These findings may be useful both for families navigating childhood infertility and practitioners who support them. This article demonstrates the cross-disciplinary potential of applying disability studies concepts to the context of infertility and chronic illness, where concepts shed new light on the dimensions of timing and anticipation in this context, improving our understanding of the lived experience of women with TS, and how they view and use reproductive technologies.

How Do We Grow Grassroots Critiques of the State? A Close Reading of Triple Jeopardy from East Baltimore

How Do We Grow Grassroots Critiques of the State?A Close Reading of Triple Jeopardy from East Baltimore Lenora R. Knowles (bio) When I sit with the images, concepts, and community voices of the Third World Women's Alliance (TWWA) in their Triple Jeopardy newspaper, I am struck by how this movement publication served as a key mechanism for the New York City chapter of the TWWA to grow leadership and critical consciousness of the racial capitalist U.S. state among their base of Third World women and Third World people more generally. In this first issue, the TWWA elucidates how members were teaching and circulating Third World political analysis and movement strategy, along with the meanings and values of Third World movement leadership. As a revised organic intellectual, organizer, and nepantlera,1 I find joy and possibility in the complex process of growing grassroots movement leaders struggling for broadscale social transformation. From its first issue through its last, Triple Jeopardy offers important considerations for doing the relational and processual work of political education and leadership development today. Below, I explore how writers of Triple Jeopardy utilized the rhetorical device of the question as a method for critical inquiry and political education. Moreover, I trace how they mobilized radical critiques of the state at multiple scales, ranging from global regimes of violence to everyday trauma, in order to build political unity. I suggest that these approaches provide invaluable tools for the grassroots base-building and leadership development that I attempt to practice while organizing in East Baltimore. To better understand some of what this first issue teaches us about leadership development, I provide a bit of context for the TWWA (see Springer 2005; Farmer 2017), the stakes of their organizing and theorizing within a Cold War context, and how they conceptualized the role of their [End Page 191] grassroots publication. The TWWA was a radical women of color organizing collective that first took shape in New York through the leadership of Black women organizers Frances Beal and Gwendolyn Patton. The organizational life of the New York–based TWWA spanned roughly from 1969 to 1977; during this time, they created an organizing program and collectivist organizational structure that centered a Third World woman of color politics that was anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-sexist. The collective's effort to develop a united front of Third World women necessitated multimodal work that was deeply personal, epistemic, collective, analytical, and embodied in nature. Their writings and organizing articulated a Third World women's consciousness among working-class women of color. They mobilized members around key local and international campaigns that promoted reproductive justice, opposed the Vietnam War, and resisted police and carceral violence. Their growing numbers demonstrated the resonance of the organization's intersectional analysis and its strategies for organizing among Third World women. In addition, their thriving base spoke to their increased organizational capacity. Thus, we might think about the TWWA's increased grassroots power in terms of its potential threat to the U.S. nation-state's stability and working-class women's allegiance to a U.S. status quo. By 1971 the organization expanded into the West Coast with the formation of the Bay Area and Seattle chapters. The national membership has been estimated to be somewhere around two hundred members. While the NYC chapter mostly organized among Black diasporic and Puerto Rican women, the West Coast chapter expanded the membership of Chicana and Asian American and Pacific Islander women alongside African American women. The NYC chapter mobilized women for the annual International Women's Day and supported local workers' picket lines, as well as protests spearheaded by groups like the Black Panther Party, La Union Latina, and the Campaign to Free Angela Davis. One of their first actions as a collective was participating in the 1970 New York women's strike, during which members publicly delivered a critique of the hegemonic white feminist organizations of the time (TWWA [1974?], 2). The organization challenged state and corporate violence domestically and abroad, most notably in their work to end the country's imperial intervention in Vietnam, state discipline of Black activists, and attacks on Third World Women's reproductive capacity...

Advocating for Abolition in Health Law: A Theory and Praxis to Liberate Black Incarcerated Women.

The prison-industrial complex has historically operated as a mechanism for social control generally and as a tool to restrict women's reproductive capacities specifically. Reproductive justice is a domain within the practice of health law. However, health law as currently practiced is ill-equipped to understand how the carceral state functions as a structural determinant of health or how legacies of oppression have facilitated the abridgment of incarcerated women's reproductive capacities.

Cycloastragenol activation of telomerase improves β-Klotho protein level and attenuates age-related malfunctioning in ovarian tissues

Age-related deterioration in the reproductive capacity of women is directly related to the poor developmental potential of ovarian follicles. Although telomerase plays a key role in female fertility, TERT-targeting therapeutic strategies for age-related female infertility have yet to be investigated. This study elucidated the effect of Telomerase activation on mice ovaries and more specifically on Klb (β-Klotho) gene expression, which is linked to ageing, female hormonal regulation, and cyclicity. The homology-based 3D model of hTERT was used to predict its binding mode of Cycloastragenol (CAG) using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Based on docking score, simulation behavior, and interaction with hTERT residues it was observed that CAG could bind with the hTERT model. CAG treatment to primary cultured mouse granulosa cells and activation of telomerase was examined via telomerase activity assay (Mouse TE (telomerase) ELISA Kit) and telomere length by quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization. CAG mediated telomerase also significantly improved β-Klotho protein level in the aged granulosa cells. To demonstrate that β-Klotho is telomerase dependent, the TERT was knocked down via siRNA in granulosa cells and protein level of β-Klotho was examined. Furthermore, CAG-mediated telomerase activation significantly enhanced the level of Klb and recovered ovarian follicles in the D-galactose (D-gal)-induced ovarian ageing mouse model. Moreover, Doxorubicin-induced ovarian damage, which changes ovarian hormones, and inhibit follicular growth was successfully neutralized by CAG activated telomerase and its recovery of β-Klotho level. In conclusion, TERT dependent β-Klotho regulation in ovarian tissues is one of the mechanisms, which can overcome female infertility.

A shift from home to the market: The marketization of reproductive labor in India

Commercial surrogacy marketizes life's work. In the era of neo-liberalism, women's work, which is often intimately performed within a heterosexual marriage in exchange of support, now remains a principal avenue to earn money. This form of feminization of labor has led to the emergence of markets for women's reproductive capacities. The present study stems from my ethnographic journey into the lives of the women who work as surrogate mothers in India. The narratives presented in the paper emerge from my prolonged fieldwork in Anand, Gujarat. It engages with the experiences, understandings, and the voices of these women, who I term reproductive laborers, in order to examine the notion of putting one's reproductive capacities in this intimate market for money.

Black Women beyond Scandal

Published in 1814 in Haiti, Baron de Vastey's essay Le Système colonial dévoilé (The Colonial System Unveiled) provides a detailed account of colonialism's violence and anti-Blackness. As he "unveils" the atrocities of slavery, Vastey demonstrates how subjugation and racialization are the result of not only spectacular violence and killings but also laws and policies that work to produce race itself through more quotidian forms of violence. The author consistently returns to the experience of enslaved Black women and to the role and subject position white women occupied in enslaving societies. In this article, I examine the contested homosocial space that Black and white women shared in Saint-Domingue, a space fraught with multifarious articulations of scandal. As I track the colonists' uses of scandal, I explore how the construction of gender through whiteness renders Black women's autonomous sexuality and reproductive capacities as always already scandalous and therefore disruptive, threatening, and destabilizing to the colonial order.

Nanoparticles in pregnancy: the next frontier in reproductive therapeutics.

Nanotechnology involves the engineering of structures on a molecular level. Nanomedicine and nano-delivery systems have been designed to deliver therapeutic agents to a target site or organ in a controlled manner, maximizing efficacy while minimizing off-target effects of the therapeutic agent administered. In both reproductive medicine and obstetrics, developing innovative therapeutics is often tempered by fears of damage to the gamete, embryo or developing foetus or of negatively impacting a woman's reproductive potential. Thus, nanomedicine delivery systems may provide alternative targeted intervention strategies, treating the source of the disease and minimizing long-term consequences for the mother and/or her foetus. This review summarizes the current state of nanomedicine technology in reproductive medicine and obstetrics, including safety, potential applications, future directions and the hurdles for translation. A comprehensive electronic literature search of PubMed and Web of Science databases was performed to identify studies published in English up until February 2020. Relevant keywords were used to obtain information regarding use of nanoparticle technology in fertility and gene therapy, early pregnancy complications (ectopic pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease) and obstetric complications (preeclampsia, foetal growth restriction, preterm birth and gestational diabetes) and for selective treatment of the mother or foetus. Safety of specific nanoparticles to the gamete, embryo and foetus was also investigated. Pre-clinical research in the development of nanoparticle therapeutic delivery is being undertaken in many fields of reproductive medicine. Non-hormonal-targeted nanoparticle therapy for fibroids and endometriosis may provide fertility-sparing medical management. Delivery of interventions via nanotechnology provides opportunities for gene manipulation and delivery in mammalian gametes. Targeting cytotoxic treatments to early pregnancy tissue provides an alternative approach to manage ectopic pregnancies and gestational trophoblastic disease. In pregnancy, nanotherapeutic delivery offers options to stably deliver silencing RNA and microRNA inhibitors to the placenta to regulate gene expression, opening doors to novel genetic treatments for preeclampsia and foetal growth restriction. Restricting delivery of teratogenic drugs to the maternal compartment (such as warfarin) may reduce risks to the foetus. Alternatively, targeted delivery of drugs to the foetus (such as those to treat foetal arrythmias) may minimize side effects for the mother. We expect that further development of targeted therapies using nanoparticles in a reproductive setting has promise to eventually allow safe and directed treatments for conditions impacting the health and reproductive capacity of women and for the management of pregnancy and serious pregnancy complications.

Reproductive Anxiety and Conditional Agency at the Intersections of Privilege: A Focus Group Study of Emerging Adults’ Perception of Long‐Acting Reversible Contraception

AbstractPublic health officials and major health care organizations in the United States have identified long‐acting reversible contraception (LARC) as the first‐line option for preventing unintended pregnancy. Existing research on LARC focuses on efficacy and usage rates, generally effacing women's lived experiences with these historically controversial devices. We take a critical, reproductive justice‐informed approach to LARC promotion efforts in this qualitative, focus group study. Across six groups of undergraduate women ages 18–24 (N = 30, majority White), we explore how the individuals targeted by contemporary LARC promotion efforts—emerging adult women who have never given birth—negotiate (not) acquiring these devices. We introduce reproductive anxiety and conditional agency as key terms through which our participants made meaning out of LARC. Though participants reflected socially normative discourses of empowerment and choice, our findings suggest that these relatively privileged respondents experienced their choices to use or not use LARC in neoliberal terms. Specifically, we suggest their responses avert attention from the multifarious ways that women's reproductive capacities are differentially disciplined by hegemonic norms. We conclude by suggesting that sexual and reproductive health policy must foreground issues of structural intersectionality—rather than cost or efficacy—so that health promotion efforts do not inadvertently exacerbate inequalities.

Impact of Oxidative Stress on Age-Associated Decline in Oocyte Developmental Competence.

Reproductive capacity in women starts to decline beyond their mid-30s and pregnancies in older women result in higher rates of miscarriage with aneuploidy. Age-related decline in fertility is strongly attributed to ovarian aging, diminished ovarian reserves, and decreased developmental competence of oocytes. In this review, we discuss the underlying mechanisms of age-related decline in oocyte quality, focusing on oxidative stress (OS) in oocytes. The primary cause is the accumulation of spontaneous damage to the mitochondria arising from increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) in oocytes, generated by the mitochondria themselves during daily biological metabolism. Mitochondrial dysfunction reduces ATP synthesis and influences the meiotic spindle assembly responsible for chromosomal segregation. Moreover, reproductively aged oocytes produce a decline in the fidelity of the protective mechanisms against ROS, namely the ROS-scavenging metabolism, repair of ROS-damaged DNA, and the proteasome and autophagy system for ROS-damaged proteins. Accordingly, increased ROS and increased vulnerability of oocytes to ROS lead to spindle instability, chromosomal abnormalities, telomere shortening, and reduced developmental competence of aged oocytes.

Relation of Vitamin D Deficiency in Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in Kirkuk

Polycystic ovary syndrome is one of the most chronic diseases affecting women. Some studies indicate that the level of vitamin D is related to the development of polycystic ovary syndrome. This vitamin-like hormone has a certain effect on insulin sensitivity and restoring reproductive capacity in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Therefore, it was planned to study the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and PCOS. This study planned to show the relationship between vitamin D deficiency, total cholesterol level, and the appearance of polycystic ovary syndrome in patients attending Kirkuk General Hospital.

The Politics of Reproduction: Race, Medicine, and Fertility in the Age of Abolition by Katherine Paugh

Reviewed by: The Politics of Reproduction: Race, Medicine, and Fertility in the Age of Abolition by Katherine Paugh Brooke N. Newman (bio) The Politics of Reproduction: Race, Medicine, and Fertility in the Age of Abolition. By Katherine Paugh. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. 304. $99.00 cloth; $57.77 ebook) In the final decades of the eighteenth century, as abolitionists in Britain campaigned for an end to the Atlantic slave trade, the ability of the slave population in the Caribbean colonies to reproduce itself through natural increase assumed crucial significance. Although the development of a plantation labor force capable of sustaining the British imperial economy hinged on enslaved women's reproductive capacity, the political and economic importance of Afro-Caribbean women's fertility during the abolition era has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Katherine Paugh's new book, The Politics of Reproduction, attempts to rectify this oversight by placing reproductive policy squarely at the center of political abolitionism. Paugh contends that abolishing the Atlantic slave trade was not designed to disrupt the Atlantic plantation system but rather to ensure the reliable, economical reproduction of a homegrown Afro-Caribbean labor force. In doing so, she offers a fresh perspective on the economic motivations for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, challenging arguments put forward by proponents of the "Williams thesis," particularly Seymour Drescher, that abolitionism was driven by humanitarian ideology and economically irrational. Instead, Paugh shows how abolitionists' promotion of slave breeding and monogamous Christian marriage was bound up with the development of global capitalism. Focusing on the overlap between abolitionists' evangelical worldview and pronatal plantation management policies designed to encourage slave increase, Paugh demonstrates how Afro-Caribbean women's reproductive potential underpinned the economic aspirations of British abolitionists, politicians, planters, and doctors. Chapter one provides a comparative analysis of concerns about slave demography in the West Indies and the American South in the decades prior to and immediately after the American Revolution. In contrast to fears of slave hyperfertility and overpopulation in North [End Page 104] America, which prompted calls to suppress the Atlantic slave trade, Paugh shows how in the Caribbean colonies the supply disruptions wrought by the American Revolution led to a new emphasis on Afro-Caribbean women's fertility as a means of easing planters' reliance on the slave trade. In chapter two, Paugh analyzes the little-known case of Mary Hylas, whose uncertain legal status as a married slave revealed the conflict between the law of slavery and the law of marriage. Shedding new light on the infamous Somerset trial of 1772, Paugh argues that the contractual nature of marriage posed problems for abolitionists seeking to at once promote marriage and condemn slavery. Chapter three focuses on attempts by abolitionists and British doctors to deploy Afro-Caribbean women's bodies as tools to reproduce the West Indian slave population. Micro-level power struggles between mixed-race women and white male plantation staff are the subject of chapter four. As Paugh reveals, both groups vied for control at the local level in response to broader political developments and geopolitical ruptures in the Atlantic world. Chapter five is concerned with plans to govern and reform Afro-Caribbean women's sexuality and reproductive practices to the benefit of the plantation economy during the age of abolition. The final chapter explores the role of missionaries on the ground in promoting Christian marriage as an alternative to concubinage that would maximize the Afro-Caribbean labor force at the expense of white men's sexual prerogatives and enslaved women's customary paths to material security. Paugh's attention to the medicalized bodies, lived experiences, and reproductive practices of enslaved women at the heart of the debate over the Atlantic slave trade brings Afro-Caribbean women and the politics of reproduction to the forefront of political abolitionism. Through analysis of a wide range of sources—plantation records, abolitionist texts and correspondence, legal cases, and medical tracts—Paugh connects local Caribbean case studies to broader political and economic developments in Britain and the Atlantic world. In sum, Paugh's book is well written, deeply researched, and compelling. [End Page 105] It makes an original contribution to the...

VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY AND PCOS;

BackgroundPolycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is mainstream gynaecological problems in adult women. Vitamin D has been linked to propensity of developing PCO. As this hormones has certain effects on insulin sensitivity and restoration of reproductive capacity in women with PCOs. So, a study was planned to establish correlation of deficiency of vitamin D and PCOs.ObjectiveTo determine the correlation of deficiency of vitamin D with PCOs in patients reporting to a teaching hospital.Material & MethodsCase control study carried out at institute of Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore, Gynae-Obst Department for six months. If serum level of vitamin D is < 25nmol/L then deficiency was labeled. Odds ratio was calculated between PCOs and vitamin D deficiency, ResultsThe mean age of the patients was 26.91±6.09 years. In this study, 70% females were married. The mean BMI of patients was 22.59±2.48kg/m2, and 76(76%) patients had normal BMI and 24(24%) patients were overweight. Vitamin D deficiency was observed in 47 cases in which 31 were from case group and 16 were from control group with significant association i.e. OR=3.47. ConclusionOur study results concluded that there is more risk of vitamin D deficiency in females with PCOS as compared to females without PCOS.

Reflexionando sobre la mujer aborigen de Gran Canaria: integrando arqueología y etnohistoria desde una perspectiva de género.

Esta contribución tiene el propósito de reflexionar sobre el papel de la mujer en la sociedad aborigen de Gran Canaria. En el texto se consideran una serie de evidencias arqueológicas y etnohistóricas que sugieren que las relaciones sociales de los antiguos canarios estaban sustentadas en un sistema de género asimétrico dominado por los hombres. La división sexual del trabajo, un acceso asimétrico a lo producido, la gestión de las relaciones de parentesco y la capacidad reproductora de las mujeres, así como su papel en el mundo religioso y funerario, son considerados con el objetivo de alcanzar una visión generalista sobre las condiciones de vida de las mujeres prehispánicas.

The production of the fetus as a "subject of rights": qualitative analysis of medical-Catholic discourses in Chile

This article presents the results of a study aimed at identifying and analyzing the discursive construction of the fetus as a subject of rights on the part of medical-religious institutions in the discussion of the decriminalization of abortion due to three causes in Chile during the 2013-2016 period. To this end, a triangulation was carried out based on an analysis of thematic content and an analysis of certain discursive strategies from the critical discourse analysis perspective using a textual corpus composed of 16 documents. Four analytical themes were identified: factual construction, female pastoral power, biopolitical management of the female body, and intervention technologies. It is concluded that the medical-religious discourse uses a series of rhetorical strategies and mobilizes meanings with respect to the fetus based on the hybridization of rhetorical strategies such as resources of factualization, connotation, metaphor and others that validate metaphysical beliefs about the body and the subjectivity of women and allow for an authoritative and irrefutable voice. Thus, the biopolitical management of women's reproductive capacities constitutes a filter that obstructs the possibility of incorporating discussions and ethical positions linked to citizenship and the social contract.

The Impact of Body Mass Index on Assisted Reproductive Treatments

Multiparity amongst women with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 Kg/m2 is a common occurrence despite there being a known clear association with a decline in fecundity in women who are overweight or obese. These women, also pose further concerns, as they are at increased risk of antenatal complications such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes. Over the years, a number of different modalities of fertility treatments have been tried and tested in this cohort of women to find the optimal treatment to improve their reproductive capacity. There has been an exponential increase in knowledge and understanding towards managing patients with a raised BMI, particularly through assisted reproductive treatments. Although the efficacies of various forms of fertility treatments have been shown to be affected by a rise in BMI, there is yet to be a definitive understanding as to the optimal management of these patients. The literature supports weight loss alone as an effective intervention in improving the reproductive capacity of women with a raised BMI with unexplained infertility. Furthermore, if live birth rate is taken as the desired outcome measure, then ovarian drilling and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment have been shown to yield the best results in overweight and obese patients when comparisons are drawn to other interventions such as natural conception and treatment with clomiphene citrate.

Досвід ведення занадто ранніх передчасних пологів, ускладнених передчасним відходженням навколоплідних вод

In Ukraine, each year born about 1,000 children ELBW, representing 0.3% of all newborns. The survival of infants with ELBW in our country has a slow upward trend and does not exceed 50%. Infants with ELBW have the highest risk of death and are the group most at risk for the development of chronic diseases of the respiratory and nervous systems and sensory apparatus and associated disability. Considering the growth of the number of children at private ELBW on the background PPROM, high perinatal morbidity and infant mortality, reduced health and reproductive capacity of women becoming urgency tactics of pregnancy and labor with premature rupture of membranes. The objective: perynatalniyh reduce complications in terms of 22-28 weeks of pregnancy complicated by premature rupture of membranes based on developing the tactics of pregnancy and childbirth. Patients and methods. To reduce perinatal complications analyzed the effect of different methods of pregnancy and childbirth on the state of newborns in gestational age 22-28 weeks against the backdrop of premature discharge of amniotic fluid. The control group consisted of 56 women who had less than a day anhydrous term. In the study group applied expectant tactics of anhydrous long term. Depending on the length of the term of anhydrous main group was divided into 2 subgroups. Sub-IA amounted to 86 pregnant women with anhydrous period of 5 days, and IP subgroup totaled 64 pregnant women with anhydrous period of 25 days. Statistical analysis of the results was performed using Microsoft Excel. Probability difference calculated by Student’s t-criterion. Results. Аnalyzing the structure and frequency of obstetric and perinatal complications in women in the period 22-28 weeks of pregnancy with different duration waterless terms, different terms of delivery proved the effectiveness of the tactics of delivery, which is used in perinatal centers m. Kyiv. This correlates with clinical data - statistical analysis of indicators of neonatal mortality and morbidity. Conclusion. Оf the research found that the rates of neonatal mortality and morbidity affecting: duration of anhydrous interval, gestational period, methods of delivery. Long expectant tactics leads to a real reduction of RDS, but an increase in the incidence of chorioamnionitis and neonatal infection. Therefore, wait-recommended tactics for 5 days, followed by delivery of women. At 22-27 weeks of pregnancy delivery path has no impact on rates of neonatal morbidity. The advantage in the delivery of women in the period 27-28 weeks, especially in the immature cervix and pelvic peredlezhenni fetal provided cesarean section. Key words: born too soon preterm birth, preterm premature rupture of membranes, pregnancy, method of delivery, birth with extremely low body weight.

“Woman” in the European Human Rights System: How is the Reproductive Rights Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights Constructing Narratives of Women’s Citizenship?

Abstract Reproductive rights are constructed through a gender-conscious reading of already recognized human rights. We argue that despite increasingly strong recognition of reproductive rights in international human rights law by treaty-monitoring bodies and international tribunals, jurisprudence of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) reflects a limited understanding of women's experiences, does not adequately challenge gender stereotypes, and often ignores reproductive rights dimensions in standards it is setting, as well as narratives it is creating. Our analysis of Court's jurisprudence on abortion, home birth, non-consensual gynecological examinations, forced sterilizations, and assisted reproduction reveals that a woman's reproductive capacity continues to be her defining feature. Motherhood is seen as a woman's default life plan, her decisions regarding her body, health, and ultimately life, are perpetually under scrutiny and contours of her agency subject to medical professionals ' views, legislators and general public. INTRODUCTION In her much-celebrated novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood created a society where women's function was reduced to breeding, and those who failed or tried to escape from this labor were labeled as Unwomen and punished. (1) Atwood's 1985 book may have been science fiction, but story she tells is distressingly not too dissimilar from women's stories in twenty-first century--even in what is known as most progressive of regions: Europe. Indeed, when we study how woman has been constructed in human rights system that was founded upon European Convention on Human Rights (hereafter, the Convention), we find disturbingly essentialist gender roles. The ECtHR is judicial forum of most established regional human rights system in world, grounded in norms of European Convention on Human Rights. The Court's decisions are binding upon forty-seven member states of Council of Europe, and are implemented through domestic legislation and regulations. Moreover, ECtHR's jurisprudence is regularly looked to and cited by other regional tribunals, treaty-monitoring bodies that adjudicate cases, and domestic courts. (2) Thus, ECtHR sets standards in human rights law both within and beyond Europe and presents an important construction site for rights narratives, including reproductive rights narratives. As questions around women's reproductive health are often deeply contested, ECtHR arguably has an especially important role to play in fostering public learning regarding reproductive rights as integral to full participation of women in European society. Indeed, we argue in this Article that by using law to publicly and authoritatively proclaim and transform unacknowledged harmful experience into legally cognizable wrongs requiring redress, Court could play a potentially transformative role in narratives of women's citizenship in European context. (3) The Court has decided a number of cases concerning matters of human reproduction (for example, restrictive abortion laws and access to in vitro fertilization). Nevertheless, ECtHR itself has neither referred to reproductive rights as human rights (and accordingly forming a part of Convention) nor specified that cases about reproduction entail questions of reproductive and decisional autonomy that go beyond private sphere and could entail needed shifts in social norms as well as institutional practices. Through examining how Court has addressed specific issues relating to reproduction, we reflect on what ECtHR's jurisprudence tells us about narratives of women's identity and citizenship in Europe more broadly. Based on a systematic review of Court's jurisprudence from 2003 to 2015, we consider nineteen cases that Court has decided regarding issues of reproductive freedoms and entitlements: four abortion cases, (4) two cases concerning home birth, (5) six cases about assisted reproduction, (6) three forced sterilization cases, (7) three forced gynecological examination cases, (8) and one landmark domestic violence decision. …

Phthalate metabolite levels and menopausal hot flashes in midlife women.

During the menopausal transition, a woman's reproductive capacity declines, her hormone milieu changes, and her risk of hot flashes increases. Exposure to phthalates, which can be found in personal care products, can also result in altered reproductive function. Here, we investigated the associations between phthalate metabolite levels and midlife hot flashes. Eligible women (45-54 years of age) provided detailed information on hot flashes history and donated urine samples (n=195). Urinary phthalate metabolite levels were measured by HPLC-MS/MS. A higher total sum of phthalate metabolites commonly found in personal care products was associated with an increased risk of ever experiencing hot flashes (odds ratio (OR)=1.45; 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.07-1.96), hot flashes in the past 30days (OR=1.43; 95%CI=1.04-1.96), and more frequent hot flashes (OR=1.47; 95%CI=1.06-2.05). These data suggest that some phthalate exposures from personal care products are associated with menopausal hot flashes in women.

Protective effect of GnRH analogues on the reproductive capacity of women with neoplasia or autoimmune disease who require chemotherapy. Final results of a phase ii clinical trial

Background and objectiveIn order to avoid the toxic effect of chemotherapy, it has been proposed to use GnRH agonist analogues (GnRHa) to inhibit the depletion of ovarian follicles. Nevertheless, there is controversy about its effectiveness. This clinical trial has been conducted with the aim to assess the protective effect of GnRH analogues on the reproductive capacity of women with malignancies or autoimmune diseases, which require chemotherapy. Patients and methodsOpen phase ii single-center clinical trial. During chemotherapy, a total of 5 doses of GnRH antagonist analogue at a dose interval of 3 days and/or a monthly dose of GnRHa were administered. Hormonal determinations prior to the start of the CT treatment were conducted during treatment and at the end of it. ResultsThe inclusion of patients was prematurely concluded when incorporating the determination of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) as a parameter for assessing the ovarian reserve. Out of 38 patients, 23 (60.5%, 95%CI 43.4–76.0) had AMH values below normal following completion of treatment. An intermediate analysis was carried out observing that while most patients were recovering the menstrual cycle (86.6% 95%CI 71.9–95.6), they had reduced levels of AMH. ConclusionAlthough most patients recovered their menstrual cycles, the ovarian reserve, assessed by the concentration of AMH, decreased in many patients. Therefore, we can conclude that the concomitant treatment of chemotherapy and GnRH analogues does not preserve the loss of follicular ovarian reserve.

The right to privacy for women in detention: Contestations of power in South Africa's penal systems

abstractLimitations on the right to privacy for women in detention must be consistent with conditions of human dignity, specifically in relation to women's health and reproductive capacity. Although departures from the norm are important in this context, this article aims to challenge contemporary conceptualisations of women's privacy rights to advance a deeper appreciation of the connection between privacy and human dignity. Hence, this article begins by tracing the jurisprudential history of the right to privacy in South Africa and critiquing its gendered implications within the prisoner rights discourse, specifically in relation to feminine modesty. It then moves on to explore power dynamics in South Africa's penal systems, specifically in relation to the sexualisation and racialisation of power, to shed light on the limitations of framing women's privacy rights in terms of their reproductive capacities and physical vulnerabilities. To illuminate the significance of this right for women in prison, the third section of the article advocates for privacy to be perceived as an instrument of human dignity. It concludes by motivating for a dignity-based approach and application of the right to privacy for women in detention.1