Reproductive Health Books

Two well known researchers, professors of criminology from the University of California itself, uncover and accurately expose a maze of questionable if not unethical behavior from two leading professors and the administration efforts to cover up the infetility scandal for several years. They clearly show how an institution should not react to a crisis and how tragic and unjust its errors can be to the innocent. Quite an entertaining story.

Page-turner? Sure, if your idea of fun is slogging through the encyclopedia. This is a weird book that feels like payback for the Villa Park, California, fertility doctor who claimed to be ignorant of his colleagues' misdeeds. In fact, maybe it was that same doctor who gives this book a five-star rating?

A detailed and accurate story of what can go wrong in modern nedicine. An account of the irresponsibility and impunity of large state institution's administrations and how a crime and a scapegoat can be created to satisfy public clamor, giving a false, erroneous sense of justice.

This book is a great reference for the novice and experienced neonatal intensive care nurse. It is easy to read and understand. It has helped me to understand the physiology of the diseases and the treatments available. I keep it close by in the unit for a quick reference. I also have taken time out when I am not busy to just browse through and find things I have never heard of so I have a "heads up" before a baby hits the unit. I highly recommend it. It is certainly worth it.

This book is a disappointment. While it covers a huge range of issues specific to the neonatal population, this book is in an outline format and fails to give the reader a descriptive, in-depth analysis necessary for most to develop a solid understanding of any complicated disease or congenital abnormality.

It was a quick read for me. Prefect for a beginner. Mind you it has A LOT OF INFO about infertility and miscarriages. For me, I am just beginning and not needing all of that info at this time. But it has info for diet, and tells you just what to do to figure out how to get pregnant. It also tell what the man needs to do to get ready as well. I liked it. Buy it used if you can otherwise its totally worth the price listed in order to get free shipping.

Although I only finished half of this book, I felt that for my siutation it was not appropriate. I had been trying to conceive for about 10 months when I started reading this book and about half way through decided to stop reading it because I started getting very stressed out over ALL of the things that I needed to "change"....It goes as far to say that even your clock radio could be affecting your fertility....are you kidding me?!?!?!?!? I just found it very inappropriate for someone who has been trying to get pregnant and is still in that 1 year time frame that is so often talked about. Unless you know that you have fertility issues and want to know some other options or treatments for your condition then I suggest that you do not read this book.

I found this book helpful as far as what we as a couple need to start off our new family...a must have for all trying to conceiver's :)

I was pregnant 4 days later so I didn't really need the book but if offered some good suggestions on sleep/diet/etc.

If you are looking for a book to give you information that you are too scared to ask, or never even thought about this is the book. Even my husband has picked it up and read it.

I would recommend this book for those that have been trying for more than 6 months. It gives you information in a simple to undestand way. Also, it is not a book that you have to read the entire thing through. Pick chapters out and read those only or first.

Goodluck!

I found this book the best I had ever read regarding donor conception. It covered so many of the issues that I needed to think about such as why we should tell our children the truth about their conception and what we will need to get for them in the way of information about their donor.
The clinic we went to didn't tell us a fraction of what this book has in it.
It should be a must read for anyone thinking of using donor conception, those of us who have kids and all the doctors, nurses etc who work in the area.

Anyone who is interested in reading this book is likely faced with some pretty tough decisions. I would not suggest buying this book. It is written with a very one-sided point of view. The author includes only "proof" that supports her opinions.

This book is horribly out of date, vague and poorly edited. I found a few pieces of information helpful but not much. I will certainly look for a more current book this time around. Many of the examples refer to California and are, therefore, very misleading. You'd be better off with internet research.

A Matter of Trust by Gail Dutton is a "must have" for anyone considering surrogacy of any type. It not only gives the reader pointers on expenses, contracts, and logistics, it also covers the emotional aspect of infertility and the hopes involved in conceiving a baby. It is written in a caring, knowledgable manner without a lot of medical jargon. It also has numerous resources for individuals seeking information on surrogacy. Before you sign anything, read this book!

The only thing I got out of the book was that a lactating mother needs more protein and the increase can be satisfied by drinking 3-31/2 cups more milk a day. There was also a need for more folic acid and some other vitamins that can be supplied by eating more green leafy vegetables. I was hoping for practical daily nutrition suggestions and there were none.

My edition is now an antique so this review is not current. I was fortunate enough to have the author as instructor in a course with the same title at UW School of Nursing in 1980 and I can safely say it is the single course which has made a daily difference in my life ever since. Worthington-Roberts has great integrity and this permeates a piece of professional literature in a way one seldom sees. I was thrilled to see that the book is available in a current edition and would recommend anything by this author on the subject of maternal and child nutrition without reservation. Today I practice as a staff midwife and breastfeeding specialist in a hospital in Norway but still find English language sources to be the best on such topics as this. There are now many, many books on pregnancy, breastfeeding and lactation, but there will always be a place on my bookshelf for this one.

This dude Shlomo ain't even a Doctor anyway don't bother trying to learn from this. Interesting photos and recipes but no practical application.

I wanted a book that would help me make some decisons about getting pregnant. I have a long history of depression and wasn't sure what my options were. This book was thorough but not exactly what I wanted.

I also ordered a Deeper Shade of Blue by Ruta Nonacs; this book was very helpful. It was well-organized and easy to read. There's a lot of information packed into the book, but it's not too intimidating for a non-medical reader.

This would be a great compendium or resource book for those writing papers on women of color. At times a bit dull to read, many chapters amass all research available to say what diseases affect women of color and to what extent. Though the book never says racism is more of an issue for women of color than sexism, the contributors usually compare the health status of women of color to white women, rather than to men of color. This book does a great job in acknowledging diversity. One might ask, for example, "How can you talk about Asian women's health when that group encompasses so many subpopulations?" The book would answer by saying, "This is what research says about East Asians; this is what is known of South Asians; this is what we have on Pacific Islander women.", etc.

I liked the chapter "Health Care on the Inside" the best. Unfortunately, because of its colloquial title, many may not know it talks about women of color in prison and their health needs. I thought this book was thorough, but some chapters need not be there. One of the last chapters was on homeless children. Yes, women are the primary caretakers of children, but that chapter would have been better suited for a book solely on children. Several other chapters are tangential to the main subject. Maybe this is an example of "Publish or perish!" Still, some authors really should have taken their work elsewhere.

To be honest, this book may be dated. It was written in the mid-1990s. Medicare has changed. Former President Clinton gutted welfare in many ways. Prisons are no longer profitable in the way they had been for small towns. This book has a chapter on Arab American women. It would now need to speak of the added discrimination they face after the 9-11 attacks. Still, I bet this book may have been a catalyst for researchers to add to the existing health studies on women of color.

This is the proceedings of the 10th world congress on human reproduction held in Salvador, Brazil in 1999. It's 43 articles cover assisted reproduction, contraception, abortion, menopause, endocrinology and endoscopy. For those generalists like myself whoare neither doctors nor specialists in reproduction, it will be an eyeopening experience.

One finds(p148) that over 300,000 human embryos were created in the UK alone in just a few years so there may have been at least two or three hundred thousand a year in the world. Most of these were from eggs(often frozen and thawed) fertilized in vitro by sperm and then frozen at the blastocyst(early embryo) stage, to be unfrozen and implanted in a uterus at a future date.

Some relevant statistics not presented here show that humans produce about 400 eggs and 200 trillion sperm every second and there are about 50 billion copulations a year. By comparison a person produces about 400 trillion hemoglobin molecules ever second.


One learns also that unwanted pregnancies alone account for an estimated 600,000 maternal deaths a year from childbirth and legal and illegal abortions. Perhaps 70,000 a year die from illegal abortions. From data presented here, I estimate that the refusal of the USA to support worldwide birthcontrol over the last 40 years has resulted in at least 350 million pregnancies, 100 million abortions(spontaneous and induced), 200,000 maternal deaths from childbirth, 300,000 dead babies, and an increase in the world population of some 250 million.

Christian fundamentalists seem to find this delightful. It would be easy for the Gates Foundation to put an end to most of this misery by distribution free birth control and `morning after' pills but of course neither they nor any other NGO has the courage to do it.

Recently hormone replacement therapy(HRT) has fallen into disfavor as it supposedly slightly increases rates of some kinds of cancer but such studies usually have severe detection/surveillance biases and articles here reviewing some 50 such studies show that with less than 5 years use, it has no proven effect on breast cancer rates and decreases cardiac problems. Furthermore, women who develop breast cancer while on HRT have a reduced risk of dying.

Although studies consistently demonstrate the safety of modern low dose oral contraceptives, it is easy to get funding so research continues. Studies seem to show that the (very small)risk of thromboembolism in normal women increases about three fold on oral contraceptives, but since the risk rises by six times during pregnancy, which has many other major consequences for health and life, this seems quite trivial. All of the studies have built in problems with severe detection/surveillance biases, preferential prescribing, attrition of susceptibles and other problems and when these can be corrected for there appears to be very little risk. Most importantly one must consider the high failure rates of alternative contraception and the very high risks of pregnancy and childbirth, to say nothing of the lifetime consequences to the couples and to society of failed contraception. Nearly all myocardial infarctions and strokes have occurred in users of the older high dose pills or in those with cardiovascular risk factors over the age of 35.
Implantable birth control devices such as Norplant and Jadelle, which slowly release hormones, have great potential, but they have been delayed significantly by the USA legalized extortion racket. Nearly all new contracptive devices have been attacked by the same morally retarded groups--fundamentalists and sometimes misguided feminists.
However this method is so effective, cheap and convenient that is growing rapidly worldwide with some 6 million users in 1997 though it is being replaced by the two implant system Jadelle.
Tamoxifen-- the first widely used Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator(SERM-- had some negative effects, but newer ones(eg, Raloxifene) seem very promising as one study showed it reduced the incidence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women by 60%.
There is great interest in the use other hormones for long term suppression of menstruation, not merely for birth control, but to decrease the often serious side effects such as anemia, pain, migraine, and dysphoria. A 400 mg injection of DepoProvera inhibits ovulation for 6 months and had some 12 million users in 1997 and contraceptive pills inserted vaginally can maintain symptom free amenorrhea for years. Oral pills called Seasonale used on a schedule permitting three bleedings a year made their appearance in 2004. Vaginal insertion has the great advantage of bypassing the liver and delivers a large dose direct to the endometrium. Consequently use of such IUD devices as Mirena, which contains the same levonorgestrel as Norplant, is growing rapidly.

There are articles on the use of intracytoplasmic sperm injection(ie, sperm injected directly into the egg) and of many cases in which the sperm is taken directly from the epididymis. With this and other techniques totally infertile men and women with major genetic reproductive defects are having children. As with most other medical procedures, nobody thinks of the fact that, on average, the children will inherit these defects, requiring ever more of these procedures in the future.

IUDs without hormones appeared long ago and are increasingly popular, with possibly 70 million users of the copper containing device, TCU 380 in 1997. It is effective for up to 12 years

It is possible to prevent a pregnancy up to 2 weeks after fertilization with vaccines against HCG and to immunize against pregnancy but this will require booster shots and much research will have to be done.