About 30 % of all infertile couples suffer from infertility of an unexplained cause. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a glycoprotein produced by the endometrium and is an important cytokine in the implantation process. LIF exerts its biological functions through heterodimerization of its two receptors: LIF receptor (LIFR) and gp130. Point mutations in the LIF gene have been associated with female infertility. The aim of this study was to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the genes of LIFR and gp130 could cause reduced fertility in women. To this end, 115 samples from women diagnosed with unexplained infertility and 191 samples from fertile women were studied. Three SNPs in the gp130 gene and two SNPs in the LIFR gene were analyzed using real-time PCR. One significant difference and a tendency to difference were detected in the gp130 gene for women with unexplained infertility. There were no differences in the LIFR gene variations. In conclusion, polymorphisms in gp130, and thereby disturbances in the LIF pathway, could be one cause for infertility in women diagnosed with unexplained infertility.

This project examines how Nadya Suleman and Kate Gosselin were represented in the media following the births of their higher order multiples by conducting a critical textual analysis of newspaper and entertainment magazine articles to answer the following questions: How were Suleman and Gosselin portrayed as mothers? And how were they portrayed as recipients of reproductive technology? The findings illustrate that race and class combined with gender to play an important role in determining who has a right to be a mother and what that mother should look like. Traditional stereotypes within media coverage about good mothers and bad mothers reinforced prejudices about who deserves access to reproductive technology and who does not.

The present survey study investigated cultural differences in social support, well-being, distress, positive and negative emotions in relation to infertility, by analyzing mean difference, correlation, regression and moderation on these variables. 117 women with primary infertility were recruited from fertility clinics in Sweden and Iran. Cultural differences were found regarding well-being and distress, indicating that infertility may pose a greater stigma in Iran than in Sweden. Even so, both samples reported high distress levels which confirmed infertility as a psychological stressor. Social support buffered against distress in the Swedish sample. Well-being was to a greater extent estimated by emotions in the Swedish sample, and by social support in the Iranian sample. Results were discussed in relation to aspects of individualism and collectivism.

Infertile and childless women think about, live with, and defend their status as mothers and as nonmothers, arguably more so than other women for whom motherhood comes about accidentally or relatively easily in accordance with a plan. Within this group of infertile and childless women are those who are otherwise socially marginalized by factors like class, race, age, marital status, and sexual identity. This dissertation asks about the ways in which marginalized infertile and childless women in America make sense of their situations given the climate of “stratified reproduction” in which the motherhood mandate excludes them or applies to them only obliquely. While other researchers focus on inequalities in access to treatment to explain why many marginalized women eschew medically assisted reproduction and adoption, I emphasize women’s resistance to these attempts at normalization. I take a critical, poststructural, feminist stance within a constructivist analytical framework to suggest that the medicalization, commodification, and bureaucratization of the most available alternative paths to motherhood create the role of the “infertile woman”—i.e., the white, middle class, heternormative, married, “desperate and damaged” cum savvy consumer. By contrast, the women who participated in this study are better described as the “ambivalent childless” (i.e., neither voluntary nor involuntary) and the “pragmatic infertile.” These women experience infertility and childlessness—two interrelated, potentially stigmatizing “roles”—in ways that belie this stereotype, reject the associated stigma in favor of an abiding, dynamic ambivalence, and re-assert themselves as fulfilled women in spite of their presumed deviance.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-141).

Bakgrund: I Sverige är 7-8 % av kvinnorna ofrivilligt barnlösa. Orsakerna till infertilitet kan vara hormonrubbningar, skador på äggledarna, kvinnor senarelägger familjebildningen och livsstilsfaktorer. Infertilitet medför många olika känslomässiga reaktioner. Syfte: Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att belysa kvinnors upplevelser av ofrivillig barnlöshet. Metod: Artikelsökningen genomfördes i EBSCO som innehåller omvårdnadsinriktade databaser. I litteraturstudien ingick det 12 kvalitativa studier som har analyserats och sammanställts med inspiration av Fribergs analysmetod. Resultat: Resultatet delades in i följande fem kategorier: "Känslomässiga upplevelser", "upplevelsen av förändrad kvinnlighet", "upplevelsen av utanförskap", "upplevelsen av meningen med livet" och "upplevelsen av ett livslångt fenomen". Konklusion: Litteraturstudiens resultat visar att kvinnans upplevelse av ofrivillig barnlöshet är ett komplext fenomen. Kvinnor behöver psykosocialt stöd för att kunna hantera och bearbeta sin situation på bästa sätt. Som sjuksköterskan är det viktigt att ha ett holistiskt synsätt. Mer forskning behövs inom området.

published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Doctor of Medicine

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

published_or_final_version / Zoology / Master / Master of Philosophy