title: In vitro fertilisation

text: A review in 2013 came to the result that infants resulting from IVF (with or without ICSI) have a relative risk of birth defects of 1.32 (95% confidence interval 1.24–1.42) compared to naturally conceived infants. In 2008, an analysis of the data of the National Birth Defects Study in the US found that certain birth defects were significantly more common in infants conceived through IVF, notably septal heart defects, cleft lip with or without cleft palate, esophageal atresia, and anorectal atresia; the mechanism of causality is unclear. However, in a population-wide cohort study of 308,974 births (with 6,163 using assisted reproductive technology and following children from birth to age five) researchers found: "The increased risk of birth defects associated with IVF was no longer significant after adjustment for parental factors." Parental factors included known independent risks for birth defects such as maternal age, smoking status, etc. Multivariate correction did not remove the significance of the association of birth defects and ICSI (corrected odds ratio 1.57), although the authors speculate that underlying male infertility factors (which would be associated with the use of ICSI) may contribute to this observation and were not able to correct for these confounders. The authors also found that a history of infertility elevated risk itself in the absence of any treatment (odds ratio 1.29), consistent with a Danish national registry study and "implicates patient factors in this increased risk." The authors of the Danish national registry study speculate: "our results suggest that the reported increased prevalence of congenital malformations seen in singletons born after assisted reproductive technology is partly due to the underlying infertility or its determinants."


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: If the underlying infertility is related to abnormalities in spermatogenesis, it is plausible, but too early to examine that male offspring are at higher risk for sperm abnormalities.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: IVF does not seem to confer any risks regarding cognitive development, school performance, social functioning, and behaviour. Also, IVF infants are known to be as securely attached to their parents as those who were naturally conceived, and IVF adolescents are as well-adjusted as those who have been naturally conceived.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Limited long-term follow-up data suggest that IVF may be associated with an increased incidence of hypertension, impaired fasting glucose, increase in total body fat composition, advancement of bone age, subclinical thyroid disorder, early adulthood clinical depression and binge drinking in the offspring. It is not known, however, whether these potential associations are caused by the IVF procedure in itself, by adverse obstetric outcomes associated with IVF, by the genetic origin of the children or by yet unknown IVF-associated causes. Increases in embryo manipulation during IVF result in more deviant fetal growth curves, but birth weight does not seem to be a reliable marker of fetal stress.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: IVF, including ICSI, is associated with an increased risk of imprinting disorders (including Prader-Willi syndrome and Angelman syndrome), with an odds ratio of 3.7 (95% confidence interval 1.4 to 9.7).


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: An IVF-associated incidence of cerebral palsy and neurodevelopmental delay are believed to be related to the confounders of prematurity and low birthweight. Similarly, an IVF-associated incidence of autism and attention-deficit disorder are believed to be related to confounders of maternal and obstetric factors.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Overall, IVF does not cause an increased risk of childhood cancer. Studies have shown a decrease in the risk of certain cancers and an increased risks of certain others including retinoblastoma, hepatoblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Theoretically, IVF could be performed by collecting the contents from the fallopian tubes or uterus after natural ovulation, mixing it with sperm, and reinserting the fertilised ova into the uterus. However, without additional techniques, the chances of pregnancy would be extremely small. The additional techniques that are routinely used in IVF include ovarian hyperstimulation to generate multiple eggs, ultrasound-guided transvaginal oocyte retrieval directly from the ovaries, co-incubation of eggs and sperm, as well as culture and selection of resultant embryos before embryo transfer into a uterus.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Ovarian hyperstimulation is the stimulation to induce development of multiple follicles of the ovaries. It should start with response prediction by e.g. age, antral follicle count and level of anti-Müllerian hormone. The resulting prediction of e.g. poor or hyper-response to ovarian hyperstimulation determines the protocol and dosage for ovarian hyperstimulation.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Ovarian hyperstimulation also includes suppression of spontaneous ovulation, for which two main methods are available: Using a (usually longer) GnRH agonist protocol or a (usually shorter) GnRH antagonist protocol. In a standard long GnRH agonist protocol the day when hyperstimulation treatment is started and the expected day of later oocyte retrieval can be chosen to conform to personal choice, while in a GnRH antagonist protocol it must be adapted to the spontaneous onset of the previous menstruation. On the other hand, the GnRH antagonist protocol has a lower risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), which is a life-threatening complication.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: For the ovarian hyperstimulation in itself, injectable gonadotropins (usually FSH analogues) are generally used under close monitoring. Such monitoring frequently checks the estradiol level and, by means of gynecologic ultrasonography, follicular growth. Typically approximately 10 days of injections will be necessary.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: IVF using no drugs for ovarian hyperstimulation was the method for the conception of Louise Brown. This method can be successfully used when women want to avoid taking ovarian stimulating drugs with its associated side-effects. HFEA has estimated the live birth rate to be approximately 1.3% per IVF cycle using no hyperstimulation drugs for women aged between 40 and 42.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Mild IVF is a method where a small dose of ovarian stimulating drugs are used for a short duration during a natural menstrual cycle aimed at producing 2–7 eggs and creating healthy embryos. This method appears to be an advance in the field to reduce complications and side-effects for women, and it is aimed at quality, and not quantity of eggs and embryos. One study comparing a mild treatment (mild ovarian stimulation with GnRH antagonist co-treatment combined with single embryo transfer) to a standard treatment (stimulation with a GnRH agonist long-protocol and transfer of two embryos) came to the result that the proportions of cumulative pregnancies that resulted in term live birth after 1 year were 43.4% with mild treatment and 44.7% with standard treatment. Mild IVF can be cheaper than conventional IVF and with a significantly reduced risk of multiple gestation and OHSS.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: When the ovarian follicles have reached a certain degree of development, induction of final oocyte maturation is performed, generally by an injection of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Commonly, this is known as the "trigger shot." hCG acts as an analogue of luteinising hormone, and ovulation would occur between 38 and 40 hours after a single HCG injection, but the egg retrieval is performed at a time usually between 34 and 36 hours after hCG injection, that is, just prior to when the follicles would rupture. This avails for scheduling the egg retrieval procedure at a time where the eggs are fully mature. HCG injection confers a risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Using a GnRH agonist instead of hCG eliminates most of the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, but with a reduced delivery rate if the embryos are transferred fresh. For this reason, many centers will freeze all oocytes or embryos following agonist trigger.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The eggs are retrieved from the patient using a transvaginal technique called transvaginal oocyte retrieval, involving an ultrasound-guided needle piercing the vaginal wall to reach the ovaries. Through this needle follicles can be aspirated, and the follicular fluid is passed to an embryologist to identify ova. It is common to remove between ten and thirty eggs. The retrieval procedure usually takes between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on the number of mature follicles, and is usually done under conscious sedation or general anaesthesia.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the laboratory, for ICSI treatments, the identified eggs are stripped of surrounding cells (also known as cumulus cells) and prepared for fertilisation. An oocyte selection may be performed prior to fertilisation to select eggs that can be fertilised, as it is required they are in metaphase II. There are cases in which if oocytes are in the metaphase I stage, they can be kept being cultured so as to undergo a posterior sperm injection. In the meantime, semen is prepared for fertilisation by removing inactive cells and seminal fluid in a process called sperm washing. If semen is being provided by a sperm donor, it will usually have been prepared for treatment before being frozen and quarantined, and it will be thawed ready for use.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The sperm and the egg are incubated together at a ratio of about 75,000:1 in a culture media in order for the actual fertilisation to take place. A review in 2013 came to the result that a duration of this co-incubation of about 1 to 4 hours results in significantly higher pregnancy rates than 16 to 24 hours. In most cases, the egg will be fertilised during co-incubation and will show two pronuclei. In certain situations, such as low sperm count or motility, a single sperm may be injected directly into the egg using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). The fertilised egg is passed to a special growth medium and left for about 48 hours until the egg consists of six to eight cells.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In gamete intrafallopian transfer, eggs are removed from the woman and placed in one of the fallopian tubes, along with the man's sperm. This allows fertilisation to take place inside the woman's body. Therefore, this variation is actually an in vivo fertilisation, not in vitro.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The main durations of embryo culture are until cleavage stage (day two to four after co-incubation) or the blastocyst stage (day five or six after co-incubation). Embryo culture until the blastocyst stage confers a significant increase in live birth rate per embryo transfer, but also confers a decreased number of embryos available for transfer and embryo cryopreservation, so the cumulative clinical pregnancy rates are increased with cleavage stage transfer. Transfer day two instead of day three after fertilisation has no differences in live birth rate. There are significantly higher odds of preterm birth (odds ratio 1.3) and congenital anomalies (odds ratio 1.3) among births having from embryos cultured until the blastocyst stage compared with cleavage stage.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Laboratories have developed grading methods to judge ovocyte and embryo quality. In order to optimise pregnancy rates, there is significant evidence that a morphological scoring system is the best strategy for the selection of embryos. Since 2009 where the first time-lapse microscopy system for IVF was approved for clinical use, morphokinetic scoring systems has shown to improve to pregnancy rates further. However, when all different types of time-lapse embryo imaging devices, with or without morphokinetic scoring systems, are compared against conventional embryo assessment for IVF, there is insufficient evidence of a difference in live-birth, pregnancy, stillbirth or miscarriage to choose between them. Active efforts to develop a more accurate embryo selection analysis based on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning are underway. Embryo Ranking Intelligent Classification Assistant (ERICA), is a clear example. This Deep Learning software substitutes manual classifications with a ranking system based on an individual embryo's predicted genetic status in a non-invasive fashion. Studies on this area are still pending and current feasibility studies support its potential.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The number to be transferred depends on the number available, the age of the patient and other health and diagnostic factors. In countries such as Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, a maximum of two embryos are transferred except in unusual circumstances. In the UK and according to HFEA regulations, a woman over 40 may have up to three embryos transferred, whereas in the US, there is no legal limit on the number of embryos which may be transferred, although medical associations have provided practice guidelines. Most clinics and country regulatory bodies seek to minimise the risk of multiple pregnancy, as it is not uncommon for multiple embryos to implant if multiple embryos are transferred. Embryos are transferred to the patient's uterus through a thin, plastic catheter, which goes through her vagina and cervix. Several embryos may be passed into the uterus to improve chances of implantation and pregnancy.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Luteal support is the administration of medication, generally progesterone, progestins, hCG, or GnRH agonists, and often accompanied by estradiol, to increase the success rate of implantation and early embryogenesis, thereby complementing and/or supporting the function of the corpus luteum. A Cochrane review found that hCG or progesterone given during the luteal phase may be associated with higher rates of live birth or ongoing pregnancy, but that the evidence is not conclusive. Co-treatment with GnRH agonists appears to improve outcomes, by a live birth rate RD of +16% (95% confidence interval +10 to +22%). On the other hand, growth hormone or aspirin as adjunctive medication in IVF have no evidence of overall benefit.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: There are various expansions or additional techniques that can be applied in IVF, which are usually not necessary for the IVF procedure itself, but would be virtually impossible or technically difficult to perform without concomitantly performing methods of IVF.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) or preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been suggested to be able to be used in IVF to select an embryo that appears to have the greatest chances for successful pregnancy. However, a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing randomised controlled trials came to the result that there is no evidence of a beneficial effect of PGS with cleavage-stage biopsy as measured by live birth rate. On the contrary, for women of advanced maternal age, PGS with cleavage-stage biopsy significantly lowers the live birth rate. Technical drawbacks, such as the invasiveness of the biopsy, and non-representative samples because of mosaicism are the major underlying factors for inefficacy of PGS.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: PGS screens for numeral chromosomal abnormalities while PGD diagnosis the specific molecular defect of the inherited disease. In both PGS and PGD, individual cells from a pre-embryo, or preferably trophectoderm cells biopsied from a blastocyst, are analysed during the IVF process. Before the transfer of a pre-embryo back to a woman's uterus, one or two cells are removed from the pre-embryos (8-cell stage), or preferably from a blastocyst. These cells are then evaluated for normality. Typically within one to two days, following completion of the evaluation, only the normal pre-embryos are transferred back to the woman's uterus. Alternatively, a blastocyst can be cryopreserved via vitrification and transferred at a later date to the uterus. In addition, PGS can significantly reduce the risk of multiple pregnancies because fewer embryos, ideally just one, are needed for implantation.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Cryopreservation can be performed as oocyte cryopreservation before fertilisation, or as embryo cryopreservation after fertilisation.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The Rand Consulting Group has estimated there to be 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States in 2006. The advantage is that patients who fail to conceive may become pregnant using such embryos without having to go through a full IVF cycle. Or, if pregnancy occurred, they could return later for another pregnancy. Spare oocytes or embryos resulting from fertility treatments may be used for oocyte donation or embryo donation to another woman or couple, and embryos may be created, frozen and stored specifically for transfer and donation by using donor eggs and sperm. Also, oocyte cryopreservation can be used for women who are likely to lose their ovarian reserve due to undergoing chemotherapy.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: By 2017, many centers have adopted embryo cryopreservation as their primary IVF therapy, and perform few or no fresh embryo transfers. The two main reasons for this have been better endometrial receptivity when embryos are transferred in cycles without exposure to ovarian stimulation and also the ability to store the embryos while awaiting the results of preimplantation genetic testing.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The outcome from using cryopreserved embryos has uniformly been positive with no increase in birth defects or development abnormalities.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: There may be leftover embryos or eggs from IVF procedures if the woman for whom they were originally created has successfully carried one or more pregnancies to term, and no longer wishes to use them. With the woman's or couple's permission, these may be donated to help other women or couples as a means of third party reproduction.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In embryo donation, these extra embryos are given to other couples or women for transfer, with the goal of producing a successful pregnancy. Embryo recipients typically have genetic issues or poor-quality embryos or eggs of their own. The resulting child is considered the child of the woman who carries it and gives birth, and not the child of the donor, the same as occurs with egg donation or sperm donation.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Typically, genetic parents donate the eggs or embryos to a fertility clinic where they are preserved by oocyte cryopreservation or embryo cryopreservation until a carrier is found for them. Typically the process of matching the donation with the prospective parents is conducted by the agency itself, at which time the clinic transfers ownership of the embryos to the prospective parents.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the United States, women seeking to be an embryo recipient undergo infectious disease screening required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and reproductive tests to determine the best placement location and cycle timing before the actual embryo transfer occurs. The amount of screening the embryo has already undergone is largely dependent on the genetic parents' own IVF clinic and process. The embryo recipient may elect to have her own embryologist conduct further testing.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Alternatives to donating unused embryos are destroying them (or having them transferred at a time when pregnancy is very unlikely), keeping them frozen indefinitely, or donating them for use in research (which results in their unviability). Individual moral views on disposing of leftover embryos may depend on personal views on the beginning of human personhood and the definition and/or value of potential future persons, and on the value that is given to fundamental research questions. Some people believe donation of leftover embryos for research is a good alternative to discarding the embryos when patients receive proper, honest and clear information about the research project, the procedures and the scientific values.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The first successful birth of a child after IVF treatment, Louise Brown, occurred in 1978. Louise Brown was born as a result of natural cycle IVF where no stimulation was made. The procedure took place at Dr Kershaw's Cottage Hospital (now Dr Kershaw's Hospice) in Royton, Oldham, England. Robert G. Edwards, the physiologist who co-developed the treatment, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. His co-workers, Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy, were not eligible for consideration as the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The second successful birth of a 'test tube baby' occurred in India just 67 days after Louise Brown was born. The girl, named Durga, was conceived in vitro using a method developed independently by Dr Subhash Mukhopadhyay, a physician and researcher from Kolkata. Mukhopadhyay had been performing experiments on his own with primitive instruments and a household refrigerator. However, state authorities prevented him from presenting his work at scientific conferences, and it was many years before Mukhopadhyay's contribution was acknowledged in works dealing with the subject.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: With egg donation and IVF, people who are past their reproductive years, have infertile male partners, have idiopathic female-fertility issues, or have reached menopause can still become pregnant. Adriana Iliescu held the record as the oldest woman to give birth using IVF and a donor egg, when she gave birth in 2004 at the age of 66, a record passed in 2006. After the IVF treatment some couples are able to get pregnant without any fertility treatments. In 2018 it was estimated that eight million children had been born worldwide using IVF and other assisted reproduction techniques.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In some cases, laboratory mix-ups (misidentified gametes, transfer of wrong embryos) have occurred, leading to legal action against the IVF provider and complex paternity suits. An example is the case of a woman in California who received the embryo of another couple and was notified of this mistake after the birth of her son. This has led to many authorities and individual clinics implementing procedures to minimise the risk of such mix-ups. The HFEA, for example, requires clinics to use a double witnessing system, the identity of specimens is checked by two people at each point at which specimens are transferred. Alternatively, technological solutions are gaining favour, to reduce the manpower cost of manual double witnessing, and to further reduce risks with uniquely numbered RFID tags which can be identified by readers connected to a computer. The computer tracks specimens throughout the process and alerts the embryologist if non-matching specimens are identified. Although the use of RFID tracking has expanded in the US, it is still not widely adopted.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: While PGD was originally designed to screen for embryos carrying hereditary genetic diseases, the method has been applied to select features that are unrelated to diseases, thus raising ethical questions. Examples of such cases include the selection of embryos based on histocompatibility (HLA) for the donation of tissues to a sick family member, the diagnosis of genetic susceptibility to disease, and sex selection.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: These examples raise ethical issues because of the morality of eugenics. It becomes frowned upon because of the advantage of being able to eliminate unwanted traits and selecting desired traits. By using PGD, individuals are given the opportunity to create a human life unethically and rely on science and not by natural selection.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: For example, a deaf British couple, Tom and Paula Lichy, have petitioned to create a deaf baby using IVF. Some medical ethicists have been very critical of this approach. Jacob M. Appel wrote that "intentionally culling out blind or deaf embryos might prevent considerable future suffering, while a policy that allowed deaf or blind parents to select "for" such traits intentionally would be far more troublesome."


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In 2008, a California physician transferred 12 embryos to a woman who gave birth to octuplets (Suleman octuplets). This led to accusations that a doctor is willing to endanger the health and even life of people in order to gain money. Robert Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, had called the industry "corrupt" and "greedy" stating that "one of the major problems facing us in healthcare is that IVF has become a massive commercial industry," and that "what has happened, of course, is that money is corrupting this whole technology", and accused authorities of failing to protect couples from exploitation: "The regulatory authority has done a consistently bad job. It's not prevented the exploitation of people, it's not put out very good information to couples, it's not limited the number of unscientific treatments people have access to". The IVF industry has been described as a market-driven construction of health, medicine and the human body.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the US, the Copyright Clause provides innovators with a temporary monopoly over their respective work. As a result, IVF is prohibitively expensive for patients as providers have to also cover the costs of patents. For example, 23andMe has patented a process used to calculate the probability of gene inheritance.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The industry has been accused of making unscientific claims, and distorting facts relating to infertility, in particular through widely exaggerated claims about how common infertility is in society, in an attempt to get as many couples as possible and as soon as possible to try treatments (rather than trying to conceive naturally for a longer time). This risks removing infertility from its social context and reducing the experience to a simple biological malfunction, which not only "can" be treated through bio-medical procedures, but should be treated by them. Indeed, there are serious concerns about the overuse of treatments, for instance Dr Sami David, a fertility specialist, has expressed disappointment over the current state of the industry, and said many procedures are unnecessary; he said: "It's being the first choice of treatment rather than the last choice. When it was first opening up in late 1970s, early 80s, it was meant to be the last resort. Now it's a first resort. I think that it can harm women in the long run." IVF thus raises ethical issues concerning the abuse of bio-medical facts to 'sell' corrective procedures and treatments for conditions that deviate from a constructed ideal of the 'healthy' or 'normal' body i.e., fertile females and males with reproductive systems capable of co-producing offspring.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: All pregnancies can be risky, but there are greater risk for women who are older and are over the age of 40. The older the woman the riskier the pregnancy. As women get older, they are more likely to develop conditions such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. If older women do conceive over the age of 40, their offspring may be of lower birth weight, and more likely to requires intensive care. Because of this, the increased risk is a sufficient cause for concern. The high incidence of caesarean in older mothers is commonly regarded as a risk.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Though there are some risk with older pregnancies, there are some benefits associated with caesareans. A study has shown that births over 40 have a lower rate of birth trauma due to increased delivery by caesarean. Though caesarean is seen to benefit mothers over 40, there are still many risk factors to consider. Caesarean section may be a risk in the same way that gestational diabetes is.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Women conceiving at 40 have a greater risk of gestational hypertension and premature birth. The offspring is at risk when being born from older mothers, and the risks associated with being conceived through IVF.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Adriana Iliescu held the record for a while as the oldest woman to give birth using IVF and a donor egg, when she gave birth in 2004 at the age of 66. In September 2019, a 74-year-old woman became the oldest-ever to give birth after she delivered twins at a hospital in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Although menopause is a natural barrier to further conception, IVF has allowed women to be pregnant in their fifties and sixties. Women whose uteruses have been appropriately prepared receive embryos that originated from an egg of an egg donor. Therefore, although these women do not have a genetic link with the child, they have a physical link through pregnancy and childbirth. In many cases the genetic father of the child is the woman's partner. Even after menopause the uterus is fully capable of carrying out a pregnancy.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: A 2009 statement from the ASRM found no persuasive evidence that children are harmed or disadvantaged solely by being raised by single parents, unmarried parents, or homosexual parents. It did not support restricting access to assisted reproductive technologies on the basis of a prospective parent's marital status or sexual orientation. A 2018 study found that children's psychological well-being did not differ when raised by either same-sex parents or heterosexual parents, even finding that psychological well-being was better amongst children raised by same-sex parents.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Ethical concerns include reproductive rights, the welfare of offspring, nondiscrimination against unmarried individuals, homosexual, and professional autonomy.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: A recent controversy in California focused on the question of whether physicians opposed to same-sex relationships should be required to perform IVF for a lesbian couple. Guadalupe T. Benitez, a lesbian medical assistant from San Diego, sued doctors Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton of the North Coast Woman's Care Medical Group after Brody told her that she had "religious-based objections to treating her and homosexuals in general to help them conceive children by artificial insemination," and Fenton refused to authorise a refill of her prescription for the fertility drug Clomid on the same grounds. The California Medical Association had initially sided with Brody and Fenton, but the case, North Coast Women's Care Medical Group v. Superior Court, was decided unanimously by the California State Supreme Court in favour of Benitez on 19 August 2008.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Nadya Suleman came to international attention after having twelve embryos implanted, eight of which survived, resulting in eight newborns being added to her existing six-child family. The Medical Board of California sought to have fertility doctor Michael Kamrava, who treated Suleman, stripped of his licence. State officials allege that performing Suleman's procedure is evidence of unreasonable judgment, substandard care, and a lack of concern for the eight children she would conceive and the six she was already struggling to raise. On 1 June 2011 the Medical Board issued a ruling that Kamrava's medical licence be revoked effective 1 July 2011.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The research and literature on transgender reproduction and family planning today remains extremely limited. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that children of transgender parents are disadvantaged. A study done in France compared the children of transgender fathers to children of cisgender parents and found the childhood development of both groups to be the same and the psycho-emotional health of the children of transgender parents to be good.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: A 2020 literature review clearly shows that transgender men and women can experience many obstacles and challenges achieving pregnancy and forming families. These issues stem from the cis-normative structure within United States medical system that leads to transphobic discrimination. Ethical concerns include reproductive rights, reproductive justice, physician autonomy, and transphobia within the health care setting.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Some children conceived by IVF using anonymous donors report being troubled over not knowing about their donor parent as well any genetic relatives they may have and their family history.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Alana Stewart, who was conceived using donor sperm, began an online forum for donor children called AnonymousUS in 2010. The forum welcomes the viewpoints of anyone involved in the IVF process. Olivia Pratten, a donor-conceived Canadian, sued the province of British Columbia for access to records on her donor father's identity in 2008. "I'm not a treatment, I'm a person, and those records belong to me," Pratten said. In May 2012, a court ruled in Pratten's favour, agreeing that the laws at the time discriminated against donor children and making anonymous sperm and egg donation in British Columbia illegal.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the U.K., Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and some Australian states, donors are not paid and cannot be anonymous.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In 2000, a website called Donor Sibling Registry was created to help biological children with a common donor connect with each other.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In 2012, a documentary called "Anonymous Father's Day" was released that focuses on donor-conceived children.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: During the selection and transfer phases, many embryos may be discarded in favour of others. This selection may be based on criteria such as genetic disorders or the sex. One of the earliest cases of special gene selection through IVF was the case of the Collins family in the 1990s, who selected the sex of their child. The ethic issues remain unresolved as no consensus exists in science, religion, and philosophy on when a human embryo should be recognised as a person. For those who believe that this is at the moment of conception, IVF becomes a moral question when multiple eggs are fertilised, begin development, and only a few are chosen for uterus transfer.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: If IVF were to involve the fertilisation of only a single egg, or at least only the number that will be transferred, then this would not be an issue. However, this has the chance of increasing costs dramatically as only a few eggs can be attempted at a time. As a result, the couple must decide what to do with these extra embryos. Depending on their view of the embryo's humanity or the chance the couple will want to try to have another child, the couple has multiple options for dealing with these extra embryos. Couples can choose to keep them frozen, donate them to other infertile couples, thaw them, or donate them to medical research. Keeping them frozen costs money, donating them does not ensure they will survive, thawing them renders them immediately unviable, and medical research results in their termination. In the realm of medical research, the couple is not necessarily told what the embryos will be used for, and as a result, some can be used in stem cell research, a field perceived to have ethical issues.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The Catholic Church opposes all kinds of assisted reproductive technology and artificial contraception, on the grounds that they separate the procreative goal of marital sex from the goal of uniting married couples.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The Catholic Church permits the use of a small number of reproductive technologies and contraceptive methods such as natural family planning, which involves charting ovulation times, and allows other forms of reproductive technologies that allow conception to take place from normative sexual intercourse, such as a fertility lubricant. Pope Benedict XVI had publicly re-emphasised the Catholic Church's opposition to in vitro fertilisation, saying that it replaces love between a husband and wife.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in accordance with the Catholic understanding of natural law, teaches that reproduction has an "inseparable connection" to the sexual union of married couples. In addition, the church opposes IVF because it might result in the disposal of embryos; in Catholicism, an embryo is viewed as an individual with a soul that must be treated as a person. The Catholic Church maintains that it is not objectively evil to be infertile, and advocates adoption as an option for such couples who still wish to have children.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Hindus welcome IVF as a gift for those who are unable to bear children and have declared doctors related to IVF to be conducting punya as there are several characters who were claimed to be born without intercourse, mainly Kaurav and five Pandavas.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Regarding the response to IVF by Islam, a general consensus from the contemporary Sunni scholars concludes that IVF methods are immoral and prohibited. However, Gad El-Hak Ali Gad El-Hak's ART fatwa includes that:


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Within the Orthodox Jewish community the concept is debated as there is little precedent in traditional Jewish legal textual sources. Regarding laws of sexuality, religious challenges include masturbation (which may be regarded as "seed wasting"), laws related to sexual activity and menstruation (niddah) and the specific laws regarding intercourse. An additional major issue is that of establishing paternity and lineage. For a baby conceived naturally, the father's identity is determined by a legal presumption (chazakah) of legitimacy: "rov bi'ot achar ha'baal" – a woman's sexual relations are assumed to be with her husband. Regarding an IVF child, this assumption does not exist and as such Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (among others) requires an outside supervisor to positively identify the father. Reform Judaism has generally approved IVF.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Many women of sub-Saharan Africa choose to foster their children to infertile women. IVF enables these infertile women to have their own children, which imposes new ideals to a culture in which fostering children is seen as both natural and culturally important. Many infertile women are able to earn more respect in their society by taking care of the children of other mothers, and this may be lost if they choose to use IVF instead. As IVF is seen as unnatural, it may even hinder their societal position as opposed to making them equal with fertile women. It is also economically advantageous for infertile women to raise foster children as it gives these children greater ability to access resources that are important for their development and also aids the development of their society at large. If IVF becomes more popular without the birth rate decreasing, there could be more large family homes with fewer options to send their newborn children. This could result in an increase of orphaned children and/or a decrease in resources for the children of large families. This would ultimately stifle the children's and the community's growth.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the US, the pineapple has emerged as a symbol of IVF users, possibly because some people thought, without scientific evidence, that eating pineapple might slightly increase the success rate for the procedure.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In larger urban centres, studies have noted that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) populations are among the fastest-growing users of fertility care.IVF is increasingly being used to allow lesbian and other LGBT couples to share in the reproductive process through a technique called reciprocal IVF. The eggs of one partner are used to create embryos which the other partner carries through pregnancy. For gay male couples, many elect to use IVF through gestational surrogacy, where one partner's sperm is used to fertilise a donor ovum, and the resulting embryo is transplanted into a surrogate carrier's womb. There are various IVF options available for same-sex couples including, but not limited to, IVF with donor sperm, IVF with a partner’s oocytes, reciprocal IVF, IVF with donor eggs, and IVF with gestational surrogate. IVF with donor sperm can be considered traditional IVF for lesbian couples, but reciprocal IVF or using a partner’s oocytes are other options for lesbian couples trying to conceive to include both partners in the biological process. Using a partner’s oocytes is an option for partners who are unsuccessful in conceiving with their own, and reciprocal IVF involves undergoing reproduction with a donor egg and sperm that is then transferred to a partner who will gestate. Donor IVF involves conceiving with a third party’s eggs. Typically, for gay male couples hoping to use IVF, the common techniques are using IVF with donor eggs and gestational surrogates.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Many LGBT communities centre their support around cisgender gay, lesbian and bisexual people and neglect to include proper support for transgender people.The same 2020 literature review analyses the social, emotional and physical experiences of pregnant transgender men. A common obstacle faced by pregnant transgender men is the possibility of gender dysphoria. Literature shows that transgender men report uncomfortable procedures and interactions during their pregnancies as well as feeling misgendered due to gendered terminology used by healthcare providers. Outside of the healthcare system, pregnant transgender men may experience gender dysphoria due to cultural assumptions that all pregnant people are cisgender women. These people use three common approaches to navigating their pregnancy: passing as a cisgender woman, hiding their pregnancy, or being out and visibly pregnant as a transgender man. Some transgender and gender diverse patients describe their experience in seeking gynaecological and reproductive health care as isolating and discriminatory, as the strictly binary healthcare system often leads to denial of healthcare coverage or unnecessary revelation of their transgender status to their employer.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Many transgender people retain their original sex organs and choose to have children through biological reproduction. Recent advances in assisted reproductive technology and fertility preservation have broadened the options transgender people have to conceive a child using their own gametes or a donor's. Transgender men and women may opt for fertility preservation before any gender affirming surgery, but it is not required for future biological reproduction. It is also recommended that fertility preservation is conducted before any hormone therapy. Additionally, while fertility specialists often suggest that transgender men discontinue their testosterone hormones prior to pregnancy, research on this topic is still inconclusive. However, a 2019 study found that transgender male patients seeking oocyte retrieval via assisted reproductive technology (including IVF) were able to undergo treatment four months after stopping testosterone treatment, on average. All patients experienced menses and normal AMH, FSH and E levels and antral follicle counts after coming off testosterone, which allowed for successful oocyte retrieval. Despite assumptions that the long-term androgen treatment negatively impacts fertility, oocyte retrieval, an integral part of the IVF process, does not appear to be affected.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Biological reproductive options available to transgender women include, but are not limited to, IVF and IUI with the trans woman's sperm and a donor or a partner's eggs and uterus. Fertility treatment options for transgender men include, but are not limited to, IUI or IVF using his own eggs with a donor's sperm and/or donor's eggs, his uterus, or a different uterus, whether that is a partner's or a surrogate's.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Studies have indicated that IVF mothers show greater emotional involvement with their child, and they enjoy motherhood more than mothers by natural conception. Similarly, studies have indicated that IVF fathers express more warmth and emotional involvement than fathers by adoption and natural conception and enjoy fatherhood more. Some IVF parents become overly involved with their children.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Research has shown that men largely view themselves as "passive contributors" since they have "less physical involvement" in IVF treatment. Despite this, many men feel distressed after seeing the toll of hormonal injections and ongoing physical intervention on their female partner.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Fertility was found to be a significant factor in a man's perception of his masculinity, driving many to keep the treatment a secret. In cases where the men did share that he and his partner were undergoing IVF, they reported to have been teased, mainly by other men, although some viewed this as an affirmation of support and friendship. For others, this led to feeling socially isolated. In comparison with females, males showed less deterioration in mental health in the years following a failed treatment. However, many men did feel guilt, disappointment and inadequacy, stating that they were simply trying to provide an "emotional rock" for their partners.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Costs of IVF can be broken down into direct and indirect costs. Direct costs include the medical treatments themselves, including doctor consultations, medications, ultrasound scanning, laboratory tests, the actual IVF procedure, and any associated hospital charges and administrative costs. Indirect costs includes the cost of addressing any complications with treatments, compensation for the gestational surrogate, patients' travel costs, and lost hours of productivity. These costs can be exaggerated by the increasing age of the woman undergoing IVF treatment (particularly those over the age of 40), and the increase costs associated with multiple births. For instance, a pregnancy with twins can cost up to three times that of a singleton pregnancy. While some insurances cover one cycle of IVF, it takes multiple cycles of IVF to have a successful outcome. A study completed in Northern California reveals that the IVF procedure alone that results in a successful outcome costs $61,377, and this can be more costly with the use of a donor egg.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the US, nineteen states have laws requiring insurance coverage for infertility treatment, and thirteen of those specifically include IVF. These states that mandate IVF coverage are: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. These laws differ by state but many require an egg be fertilised with sperm from a spouse and that in order to be covered you must show you cannot become pregnant through penile-vaginal sex. These requirements are not possible for a same-sex couple to meet. No state Medicaid program, however, covers for IVF according to a 2020 report.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Navigating insurance coverage for transgender expectant parents presents a unique challenge. Insurance plans are designed to cater towards a specific population, meaning that some plans can provide adequate coverage for gender-affirming care but fail to provide fertility services for transgender patients. Additionally, insurance coverage is constructed around a person's legally recognised sex and not their anatomy; thus, transgender people may not get coverage for the services they need, including transgender men for fertility services.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: High costs keep IVF out of reach for many developing countries, but research by the Genk Institute for Fertility Technology, in Belgium, claim to have found a much lower cost methodology (about 90% reduction) with similar efficacy, which may be suitable for some fertility treatment.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Moreover, the laws of many countries permit IVF for only single individuals, lesbian couples, and persons participating in surrogacy arrangements. Using PGD gives members of these select demographic groups disproportionate access to a means of creating a child possessing characteristics that they consider "ideal," raising issues of equal opportunity for both the parents'/parent's and the child's generation. Many fertile couples now demand equal access to embryonic screening so that their child can be just as healthy as one created through IVF. Mass use of PGD, especially as a means of population control or in the presence of legal measures related to population or demographic control, can lead to intentional or unintentional demographic effects such as the skewed live-birth sex ratios seen in communist China following implementation of its one-child policy.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The high cost of IVF is also a barrier to access for individuals with disabilities. People with disabilities typically have lower incomes, face higher health care costs, and seek health care services more often than people without disabilities. Adding on the high cost of multiple cycles of IVF, this deters many disabled individuals from pursuing fertility treatment and makes it completely unaccessible for most.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In Australia, the average age of women undergoing ART treatment is 35.5 years among those using their own eggs (one in four being 40 or older) and 40.5 years among those using donated eggs. While IVF is available in Australia, Australians using IVF are unable to choose their baby's gender.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In Canada, one cycle of IVF treatment can cost between $7,750 to $12,250 CAD, and medications alone can cost between $2,500 to over $7,000 CAD. The funding mechanisms that influence accessibility in Canada vary by province and territory, with some provinces providing full, partial or no coverage.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: New Brunswick provides partial funding through their Infertility Special Assistance Fund – a one time grant of up to $5,000. Patients may only claim up to 50% of treatment costs or $5,000 (whichever is less) occurred after April 2014. Eligible patients must be a full-time New Brunswick resident with a valid Medicare card and have an official medical infertility diagnosis by a physician.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In December 2015, the Ontario provincial government enacted the Ontario Fertility Program for patients with medical and non-medical infertility, regardless of sexual orientation, gender or family composition. Eligible patients for IVF treatment must be Ontario residents under the age of 43 and have a valid Ontario Health Insurance Plan card and have not already undergone any IVF cycles. Coverage is extensive, but not universal. Coverage extends to certain blood and urine tests, physician/nurse counselling and consultations, certain ultrasounds, up to two cycle monitorings, embryo thawing, freezing and culture, fertilisation and embryology services, single transfers of all embryos, and one surgical sperm retrieval using certain techniques only if necessary. Drugs and medications are not covered under this Program, along with psychologist or social worker counselling, storage and shipping of eggs, sperm or embryos, and the purchase of donor sperm or eggs.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: IVF is expensive in China and not generally accessible to unmarried women. In August 2022, China's National Health Authority announced that it will take steps to make assisted reproductive technology more accessible, including by guiding local governments to include such technology in its national medical system.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The penetration of the IVF market in India is quite low, with only 2,800 cycles per million infertile people in the reproductive age group (20–44 years), as compared to China, which has 6,500 cycles. The key challenges are lack of awareness, affordability and accessibility. Since 2018, however, India has become a destination for fertility tourism, because of lower costs than in the Western world. In December 2021, the Lok Sabha passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill 2020, to regulate ART services including IVF centres, sperm and egg banks.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Israel has the highest rate of IVF in the world, with 1657 procedures performed per million people per year. Couples without children can receive funding for IVF for up to two children. The same funding is available for people without children who will raise up to 2 children in a single parent home. IVF is available for people aged 18 to 45. The Israeli Health Ministry says it spends roughly $3450 per procedure.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: One, two or three IVF treatments are government subsidised for people who are younger than 40 and have no children. The rules for how many treatments are subsidised, and the upper age limit for the people, vary between different county councils. Single people are treated, and embryo adoption is allowed. There are also private clinics that offer the treatment for a fee.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Availability of IVF in England is determined by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends up to 3 cycles of treatment for people under 40 years old with minimal success conceiving after 2 years of unprotected sex. Cycles will not be continued for people who are older than 40 years. CCGs in Essex, Bedfordshire and Somerset have reduced funding to one cycle, or none, and it is expected that reductions will become more widespread. Funding may be available in "exceptional circumstances" – for example if a male partner has a transmittable infection or one partner is affected by cancer treatment. According to the campaign group Fertility Fairness "at the end of 2014 every CCG in England was funding at least one cycle of IVF". Prices paid by the NHS in England varied between under £3,000 to more than £6,000 in 2014/5. In February 2013, the cost of implementing the NICE guidelines for IVF along with other treatments for infertility was projected to be £236,000 per year per 100,000 members of the population.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: IVF increasingly appears on NHS treatments blacklists. In August 2017 five of the 208 CCGs had stopped funding IVF completely and others were considering doing so. By October 2017 only 25 CCGs were delivering the three recommended NHS IVF cycles to eligible people under 40. Policies could fall foul of discrimination laws if they treat same sex couples differently from heterosexual ones. In July 2019 Jackie Doyle-Price said that women were registering with surgeries further away from their own home in order to get around CCG rationing policies.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said in September 2018 that parents who are limited to one cycle of IVF, or have to fund it themselves, are more likely choose to implant multiple embryos in the hope it increases the chances of pregnancy. This significantly increases the chance of multiple births and the associated poor outcomes, which would increase NHS costs. The president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that funding 3 cycles was "the most important factor in maintaining low rates of multiple pregnancies and reduce(s) associated complications".


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In the United States, overall availability of IVF in 2005 was 2.5 IVF physicians per 100,000 population, and utilisation was 236 IVF cycles per 100,000. 126 procedures are performed per million people per year. Utilisation highly increases with availability and IVF insurance coverage, and to a significant extent also with percentage of single persons and median income. In the US, an average cycle, from egg retrieval to embryo implantation, costs $12,400, and insurance companies that do cover treatment, even partially, usually cap the number of cycles they pay for. As of 2015, more than 1 million babies had been born utilising IVF technologies.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: The cost of IVF rather reflects the costliness of the underlying healthcare system than the regulatory or funding environment, and ranges, on average for a standard IVF cycle and in 2006 United States dollars, between $12,500 in the United States to $4,000 in Japan. In Ireland, IVF costs around €4,000, with fertility drugs, if required, costing up to €3,000. The cost per live birth is highest in the United States ($41,000) and United Kingdom ($40,000) and lowest in Scandinavia and Japan (both around $24,500).


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Many fertility clinics in the United States limit the upper age at which people are eligible for IVF to 50 or 55 years. These cut-offs make it difficult for people older than fifty-five to utilise the procedure.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Government agencies in China passed bans on the use of IVF in 2003 by unmarried people or by couples with certain infectious diseases.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: In India, the use of IVF as a means of sex selection (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) is banned under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Sunni Muslim nations generally allow IVF between married couples when conducted with their own respective sperm and eggs, but not with donor eggs from other couples. But Iran, which is Shi'a Muslim, has a more complex scheme. Iran bans sperm donation but allows donation of both fertilised and unfertilised eggs. Fertilised eggs are donated from married couples to other married couples, while unfertilised eggs are donated in the context of mut'ah or temporary marriage to the father.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: By 2012 Costa Rica was the only country in the world with a complete ban on IVF technology, it having been ruled unconstitutional by the nation's Supreme Court because it "violated life." Costa Rica had been the only country in the western hemisphere that forbade IVF. A law project sent reluctantly by the government of President Laura Chinchilla was rejected by parliament. President Chinchilla has not publicly stated her position on the question of IVF. However, given the massive influence of the Catholic Church in her government any change in the status quo seems very unlikely. In spite of Costa Rican government and strong religious opposition, the IVF ban has been struck down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a decision of 20 December 2012. The court said that a long-standing Costa Rican guarantee of protection for every human embryo violated the reproductive freedom of infertile couples because it prohibited them from using IVF, which often involves the disposal of embryos not implanted in a woman's uterus. On 10 September 2015, President Luis Guillermo Solís signed a decree legalising in-vitro fertilisation. The decree was added to the country's official gazette on 11 September. Opponents of the practice have since filed a lawsuit before the country's Constitutional Court.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: All major restrictions on single but infertile people using IVF were lifted in Australia in 2002 after a final appeal to the Australian High Court was rejected on procedural grounds in the Leesa Meldrum case. A Victorian federal court had ruled in 2000 that the existing ban on all single women and lesbians using IVF constituted sex discrimination. Victoria's government announced changes to its IVF law in 2007 eliminating remaining restrictions on fertile single women and lesbians, leaving South Australia as the only state maintaining them.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Federal regulations in the United States include screening requirements and restrictions on donations, but generally do not affect sexually intimate partners. However, doctors may be required to "provide" treatments due to nondiscrimination laws, as for example in California. The US state of Tennessee proposed a bill in 2009 that would have defined donor IVF as adoption. During the same session another bill proposed barring adoption from any unmarried and cohabitating couple, and activist groups stated that passing the first bill would effectively stop unmarried women from using IVF. Neither of these bills passed.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Few American courts have addressed the issue of the "property" status of a frozen embryo. This issue might arise in the context of a divorce case, in which a court would need to determine which spouse would be able to decide the disposition of the embryos. It could also arise in the context of a dispute between a sperm donor and egg donor, even if they were unmarried. In 2015, an Illinois court held that such disputes could be decided by reference to any contract between the parents-to-be. In the absence of a contract, the court would weigh the relative interests of the parties.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Individuals with disabilities are just as entitled to equitable access to fertility treatment such as IVF as individuals without disabilities. However, most of the time this access is not granted. In fact, people with disabilities who wish to have children are equally or more likely than the non-disabled population to experience infertility, yet disabled individuals are much less likely to have access to fertility treatment such as IVF. There are many extraneous factors that hinder disabled individuals access to IVF, such as assumptions about decision making capacity, sexual interests and abilities, heritability of a disability, and beliefs about parenting ability. Assumptions like these may be the reason that people with disabilities unjustly receive less access to medically indicated reproductive care than other people of similar age and sex. These same misconceptions about people with disabilities that once led health care providers to sterilise thousands of women with disabilities now lead them to provide or deny reproductive care on the basis of stereotypes concerning people with disabilities and their sexuality.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: Not only do misconceptions about disabled individuals parenting ability, sexuality, and health restrict and hinder access to fertility treatment such as IVF, structural barriers such as providers uneducated in disability healthcare and inaccessible clinics severely hinder disabled individuals access to receiving IVF. Non handicap accessible buildings, medical equipment, exam tables, etc. are all barriers that make accessing IVF almost impossible for individuals with disabilities. A woman named Nia shares her story on how accessing IVF as a disabled blind person was extremely difficult, if not almost impossible. She tells us how transportation to the clinic was inaccessible for a disabled individual, the medication given for IVF was extremely hard to self administer, and her providers were uninformed on how to make the IVF process disability accessible. Stories like Nia's show us how fertility treatment such as IVF are inequitably inaccessible for disabled individuals and why they need to be disability friendly in order to protect the right to parent for individuals with disabilities.


title: In vitro fertilisation

text: There are obvious indications that access to IVF and similar fertility treatments are much less accessible for individuals with disabilities. Even though the ASRM states that "children thrive within a wide range of parenting approaches or homes" as well as that it is "inaccurate to assume that being disabled means having no sexual or reproductive interests or being sexually inactive, celibate, or asexual, assumptions about disabled individuals sexuality and parenting ability paired with uniformed providers and lack of accessible clinics and medical equipment hinder access to fertility treatment such as IVF for disabled individuals. Steps need to be taken to make the field of fertility accessible to all, and protect the right to start a family despite ability level.


title: Zucchini

text: The zucchini (; plural: zucchini or zucchinis), courgette (; plural: courgettes) or baby marrow ("Cucurbita pepo") is a summer squash, a vining herbaceous plant whose fruit are harvested when their immature seeds and epicarp (rind) are still soft and edible. It is closely related, but not identical, to the marrow; its fruit may be called "marrow" when mature.


title: Zucchini

text: Ordinary zucchini fruit are any shade of green, though the golden zucchini is a deep yellow or orange. At maturity, they can grow to nearly in length, but they are normally harvested at about .


title: Zucchini

text: In botany, the zucchini's fruit is a pepo, a berry (the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower) with a hardened epicarp. In cookery, it is treated as a vegetable, usually cooked and eaten as a savory dish or accompaniment.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini occasionally contain toxic cucurbitacins, making them extremely bitter, and causing severe gastero-enteric upsets. Causes include stressed growing conditions, and cross pollination with ornamental squashes.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini descends from squashes first domesticated in Mesoamerica over 7,000 years ago, but the zucchini itself was bred in Milan in the late 19th century.


title: Zucchini

text: The plant has three names in English, all of them meaning 'small marrow': "zucchini" (an Italian loanword), usually used in the plural form even when only one "zucchina" is meant, "courgette" (a French loanword), and "baby marrow" (South African English). "Zucchini" and "courgette" are doublets, both descending from the Latin .


title: Zucchini

text: The name "zucchini" is used in American, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand English. It is loaned from Italian, where is the plural masculine diminutive of ().


title: Zucchini

text: In Italian, the masculine (plural: ) is attested earlier and hence preferred by the Accademia della Crusca, the Italian language regulator. The feminine (plural: ) is also found, and preferred by the Italian-language encyclopedia "Treccani", which considers to be a Tuscan Dialect word.


title: Zucchini

text: The name "courgette" is used in British, Hiberno-, Malaysian, New Zealand, and South African English. It is loaned from French, where () is a diminutive of . "Courgette" is also used in Dutch.


title: Zucchini

text: The name "baby marrow" is used in South Africa to name a zucchini harvested when extremely immature, the size of an index finger.


title: Zucchini

text: The female flower is a golden blossom on the end of each emergent zucchini. The male flower grows directly on the stem of the zucchini plant in the leaf axils (where leaf petiole meets stem), on a long stalk, and is slightly smaller than the female. Both flowers are edible and are often used to dress a meal or to garnish the cooked fruit.


title: Zucchini

text: Firm and fresh blossoms that are only slightly open are cooked to be eaten, with pistils removed from female flowers, and stamens removed from male flowers. The stems on the flowers can be retained as a way of giving the cook something to hold onto during cooking, rather than injuring the delicate petals, or they can be removed prior to cooking, or prior to serving. There are a variety of recipes in which the flowers may be deep fried as fritters or tempura (after dipping in a light tempura batter), stuffed, sautéed, baked, or used in soups.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini, like all squash, has its ancestry in the Americas, specifically Mesoamerica. However, the varieties of green, cylindrical squash harvested immature and typically called "zucchini" were cultivated in northern Italy, as much as three centuries after the introduction of cucurbits from the Americas. It appears that this occurred in the second half of the 19th century, although the first description of the variety under the name "zucchini" occurs in a work published in Milan in 1901. Early varieties usually appended the names of nearby cities in their names.


title: Zucchini

text: The first records of zucchini in the United States date to the early 1920s. It was almost certainly taken to America by Italian immigrants and probably was first cultivated in the United States in California. A 1928 report on vegetables grown in New York State treats 'Zucchini' as one among 60 cultivated varieties of "C. pepo".


title: Zucchini

text: When used for food, zucchini are usually picked when under in length, when the seeds are still soft and immature. Mature zucchini can be long or more. These larger ones often have mature seeds and hard skins, requiring peeling and seeding. A zucchini with the flowers attached is a sign of a truly fresh and immature fruit, and it is especially sought after for its sweeter flavor.


title: Zucchini

text: Unlike cucumber, zucchini is usually served cooked. It can be prepared using a variety of cooking techniques, including steamed, boiled, grilled, stuffed and baked, barbecued, fried, or incorporated in other recipes such as soufflés. Zucchini can also be baked into a "zucchini bread", similar to banana bread, or incorporated into a cake mix to make "zucchini cake", similar to carrot cake. Its flowers can be eaten stuffed and are a delicacy when deep fat fried (e.g., tempura).


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini has a delicate flavor and can be found simply cooked with butter or olive oil and herbs, or in more complex dishes. The skin is usually left in place. When frying zucchini, it is recommended to pat down cut sections to make them drier, similarly to what may be done with eggplant, in order to keep the slices’ shape while cooking. Zucchini can also be eaten raw, sliced or shredded, in a cold salad, as well as lightly cooked in hot salads, as in Thai or Vietnamese recipes. Mature (larger sized) zucchini are well suited for cooking in breads.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchinis can be cut with a spiralizer into noodle-like spirals and used as a low-carbohydrate substitute for pasta or noodles, often referred to as 'Zoodles'.


title: Zucchini

text: In Bulgaria, zucchini may be fried and then served with a dip, made from yogurt, garlic, and dill. Another popular dish is oven-baked zucchini—sliced or grated—covered with a mixture of eggs, yogurt, flour, and dill.


title: Zucchini

text: In France, zucchini is a key ingredient in ratatouille, a stew of summer vegetable-fruits and vegetables prepared in olive oil and cooked for an extended time over low heat. The dish, originating near present-day Nice, is served as a side dish or on its own at lunch with bread. Zucchini may be stuffed with meat or with other fruits such as tomatoes or bell peppers in a dish called "courgette farcie" (stuffed zucchini).


title: Zucchini

text: In Greece, zucchini is usually fried, stewed or boiled with other fruits (often green chili peppers and eggplants). It is served as an "hors d'œuvre" or as a main dish, especially during fasting seasons. Zucchini is also stuffed with minced meat, rice, and herbs and served with "avgolemono" sauce. In several parts of Greece, the flowers of the plant are stuffed with white cheese, usually feta or mizithra, or with a mixture of rice, herbs, and occasionally minced meat. They are then deep-fried or baked in the oven with tomato sauce.


title: Zucchini

text: In Italy, zucchini is served in a variety of ways: fried, baked, boiled, or deep fried, alone or in combination with other ingredients. At home and in some restaurants, it is possible to eat the flowers, as well, deep-fried, known as "fiori di zucca" (cf. pumpkin flower fritter).


title: Zucchini

text: In the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, zucchini is often stuffed and called "dolma". It is also used in various stews, both with and without meat, including "ladera".


title: Zucchini

text: In Mexico, the flower (known as "flor de calabaza") is often cooked in soups or used as a filling for quesadillas. The fruit is used in stews, soups (i.e. "caldo de res", "de pollo", or "de pescado", "mole de olla", etc.) and other preparations. The flower, as well as the fruit, is eaten often throughout Latin America.


title: Zucchini

text: In Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries, zucchini usually is coated in flour or semolina and then fried or baked in vegetable oil, served with sour cream. Another popular recipe is "zucchini caviar", a squash spread made from thermically processed zucchini, carrots, onions and tomato paste, produced either at home or industrially as a vegetable preserve.


title: Zucchini

text: In Turkey, zucchini is the main ingredient in the popular dish "mücver", or "zucchini pancakes", made from shredded zucchini, flour, and eggs, lightly fried in olive oil and eaten with yogurt. They are also often used in kebabs along with various meats. The flowers are also used in a cold dish, where they are stuffed with a rice mix with various spices and nuts and stewed.


title: Zucchini

text: Stuffed zucchini is found in many cuisines. Typical stuffings in the Middle Eastern family of dolma include rice, onions, tomato, and sometimes meat.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini are low in food energy (approximately per fresh zucchini) and contain good amounts of folate (24 μg/100 g), potassium (261 mg/100 g), provitamin A (200 IU [10 RAE]/100 g) and vitamin C (12.9 mg/100 g) .


title: Zucchini

text: Members of the plant family Cucurbitaceae, which includes zucchini / marrows, pumpkins and cucumbers, can contain toxins called cucurbitacins. These are steroids which defend the plants from predators, and have a bitter taste to humans. Cultivated cucurbitaceae are bred for low levels of the toxin and are safe to eat. However, ornamental pumpkins can have high levels of cucurbitacins, and such ornamental plants can cross-fertilize edible cucurbitaceae—any such cross-fertilized seeds used by the gardener for growing food in the following season can therefore potentially produce bitter and toxic fruit. Dry weather or irregular watering can also favor the production of the toxin, which is not destroyed by cooking. Humans with an impaired sense of taste (particularly the elderly) should therefore ask a younger person to taste the zucchini for them. This toxin has caused at least one death of an elderly person, in 2015. Investigators warned that gardeners should not save their own seeds, as reversion to forms containing more poisonous cucurbitacin might occur.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini can also be responsible for allergy caused by the presence of a protein: profilin. The sap released when peeling young zucchini also contains a viscous substance which when drying on the hands gives the impression of super-glue and dry hands.


title: Zucchini

text: Zucchini is very easy to cultivate in temperate climates. As such, it has a reputation among home gardeners for overwhelming production. The part harvested as "zucchini" is the immature fruit, although the flowers, mature fruit, and leaves are eaten, as well. One good way to control overabundance is to harvest the flowers, which are an expensive delicacy in markets because of the difficulty in storing and transporting them. The male flower is borne on the end of a stalk and is longer-lived.


title: Zucchini

text: While easy to grow, zucchini, like all squash, requires plentiful bees for pollination. In areas of pollinator decline or high pesticide use, such as mosquito-spray districts, gardeners often experience fruit abortion, where the fruit begins to grow, then dries or rots. This is due to an insufficient number of pollen grains delivered to the female flower. It can be corrected by hand pollination or by increasing the bee population.


title: Zucchini

text: Closely related to zucchini are Lebanese summer squash or "kusa" (not to be confused with cushaw), but they often are lighter green or even white. Some seed catalogs do not distinguish them. Various varieties of round zucchinis are grown in different countries under different names, such as "Tondo di Piacenza" in Italy, "Qarabaghli" in Malta and "Ronde de Nice" in France. In the late 1990s, American producers in California cultivated and began marketing round yellow and green zucchini known as "8-ball" squash (the yellow ones are sometimes known as "1-ball" or "gold ball"). White zucchini (summer squash) is sometimes seen as a mutation and can appear on the same plant as its green counterpart.


title: Electron

text: The electron (' or ') is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavelength for a given energy.


title: Electron

text: Electrons play an essential role in numerous physical phenomena, such as electricity, magnetism, chemistry and thermal conductivity, and they also participate in gravitational, electromagnetic and weak interactions. Since an electron has charge, it has a surrounding electric field, and if that electron is moving relative to an observer, said observer will observe it to generate a magnetic field. Electromagnetic fields produced from other sources will affect the motion of an electron according to the Lorentz force law. Electrons radiate or absorb energy in the form of photons when they are accelerated.


title: Electron

text: Laboratory instruments are capable of trapping individual electrons as well as electron plasma by the use of electromagnetic fields. Special telescopes can detect electron plasma in outer space. Electrons are involved in many applications such as tribology or frictional charging, electrolysis, electrochemistry, battery technologies, electronics, welding, cathode-ray tubes, photoelectricity, photovoltaic solar panels, electron microscopes, radiation therapy, lasers, gaseous ionization detectors and particle accelerators.


title: Electron

text: Interactions involving electrons with other subatomic particles are of interest in fields such as chemistry and nuclear physics. The Coulomb force interaction between the positive protons within atomic nuclei and the negative electrons without, allows the composition of the two known as atoms. Ionization or differences in the proportions of negative electrons versus positive nuclei changes the binding energy of an atomic system. The exchange or sharing of the electrons between two or more atoms is the main cause of chemical bonding. In 1838, British natural philosopher Richard Laming first hypothesized the concept of an indivisible quantity of electric charge to explain the chemical properties of atoms. Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney named this charge 'electron' in 1891, and J. J. Thomson and his team of British physicists identified it as a particle in 1897 during the cathode-ray tube experiment. Electrons can also participate in nuclear reactions, such as nucleosynthesis in stars, where they are known as beta particles. Electrons can be created through beta decay of radioactive isotopes and in high-energy collisions, for instance when cosmic rays enter the atmosphere. The antiparticle of the electron is called the positron; it is identical to the electron except that it carries electrical charge of the opposite sign. When an electron collides with a positron, both particles can be annihilated, producing gamma ray photons.


title: Electron

text: The ancient Greeks noticed that amber attracted small objects when rubbed with fur. Along with lightning, this phenomenon is one of humanity's earliest recorded experiences with electricity. In his 1600 treatise , the English scientist William Gilbert coined the New Latin term , to refer to those substances with property similar to that of amber which attract small objects after being rubbed. Both "electric" and "electricity" are derived from the Latin ' (also the root of the alloy of the same name), which came from the Greek word for amber, (').


title: Electron

text: In the early 1700s, French chemist Charles François du Fay found that if a charged gold-leaf is repulsed by glass rubbed with silk, then the same charged gold-leaf is attracted by amber rubbed with wool. From this and other results of similar types of experiments, du Fay concluded that electricity consists of two electrical fluids, "vitreous" fluid from glass rubbed with silk and "resinous" fluid from amber rubbed with wool. These two fluids can neutralize each other when combined. American scientist Ebenezer Kinnersley later also independently reached the same conclusion. A decade later Benjamin Franklin proposed that electricity was not from different types of electrical fluid, but a single electrical fluid showing an excess (+) or deficit (−). He gave them the modern charge nomenclature of positive and negative respectively. Franklin thought of the charge carrier as being positive, but he did not correctly identify which situation was a surplus of the charge carrier, and which situation was a deficit.


title: Electron

text: Between 1838 and 1851, British natural philosopher Richard Laming developed the idea that an atom is composed of a core of matter surrounded by subatomic particles that had unit electric charges. Beginning in 1846, German physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber theorized that electricity was composed of positively and negatively charged fluids, and their interaction was governed by the inverse square law. After studying the phenomenon of electrolysis in 1874, Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney suggested that there existed a "single definite quantity of electricity", the charge of a monovalent ion. He was able to estimate the value of this elementary charge "e" by means of Faraday's laws of electrolysis. However, Stoney believed these charges were permanently attached to atoms and could not be removed. In 1881, German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz argued that both positive and negative charges were divided into elementary parts, each of which "behaves like atoms of electricity".


title: Electron

text: Stoney initially coined the term "electrolion" in 1881. Ten years later, he switched to "electron" to describe these elementary charges, writing in 1894: "... an estimate was made of the actual amount of this most remarkable fundamental unit of electricity, for which I have since ventured to suggest the name "electron"". A 1906 proposal to change to "electrion" failed because Hendrik Lorentz preferred to keep "electron". The word "electron" is a combination of the words "electric" and "ion". The suffix -"on" which is now used to designate other subatomic particles, such as a proton or neutron, is in turn derived from electron.


title: Electron

text: While studying electrical conductivity in rarefied gases in 1859, the German physicist Julius Plücker observed the radiation emitted from the cathode caused phosphorescent light to appear on the tube wall near the cathode; and the region of the phosphorescent light could be moved by application of a magnetic field. In 1869, Plücker's student Johann Wilhelm Hittorf found that a solid body placed in between the cathode and the phosphorescence would cast a shadow upon the phosphorescent region of the tube. Hittorf inferred that there are straight rays emitted from the cathode and that the phosphorescence was caused by the rays striking the tube walls. In 1876, the German physicist Eugen Goldstein showed that the rays were emitted perpendicular to the cathode surface, which distinguished between the rays that were emitted from the cathode and the incandescent light. Goldstein dubbed the rays cathode rays. Decades of experimental and theoretical research involving cathode rays were important in J. J. Thomson's eventual discovery of electrons.


title: Electron

text: During the 1870s, the English chemist and physicist Sir William Crookes developed the first cathode-ray tube to have a high vacuum inside. He then showed in 1874 that the cathode rays can turn a small paddle wheel when placed in their path. Therefore, he concluded that the rays carried momentum. Furthermore, by applying a magnetic field, he was able to deflect the rays, thereby demonstrating that the beam behaved as though it were negatively charged. In 1879, he proposed that these properties could be explained by regarding cathode rays as composed of negatively charged gaseous molecules in a fourth state of matter in which the mean free path of the particles is so long that collisions may be ignored.


title: Electron

text: The German-born British physicist Arthur Schuster expanded upon Crookes's experiments by placing metal plates parallel to the cathode rays and applying an electric potential between the plates. The field deflected the rays toward the positively charged plate, providing further evidence that the rays carried negative charge. By measuring the amount of deflection for a given level of current, in 1890 Schuster was able to estimate the charge-to-mass ratio of the ray components. However, this produced a value that was more than a thousand times greater than what was expected, so little credence was given to his calculations at the time. This is because it was assumed that the charge carriers were much heavier hydrogen or nitrogen atoms. Schuster's estimates would subsequently turn out to be largely correct.


title: Electron

text: In 1892 Hendrik Lorentz suggested that the mass of these particles (electrons) could be a consequence of their electric charge.


title: Electron

text: While studying naturally fluorescing minerals in 1896, the French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered that they emitted radiation without any exposure to an external energy source. These radioactive materials became the subject of much interest by scientists, including the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford who discovered they emitted particles. He designated these particles alpha and beta, on the basis of their ability to penetrate matter. In 1900, Becquerel showed that the beta rays emitted by radium could be deflected by an electric field, and that their mass-to-charge ratio was the same as for cathode rays. This evidence strengthened the view that electrons existed as components of atoms.


title: Electron

text: In 1897, the British physicist J. J. Thomson, with his colleagues John S. Townsend and H. A. Wilson, performed experiments indicating that cathode rays really were unique particles, rather than waves, atoms or molecules as was believed earlier. Thomson made good estimates of both the charge "e" and the mass "m", finding that cathode ray particles, which he called "corpuscles", had perhaps one thousandth of the mass of the least massive ion known: hydrogen. He showed that their charge-to-mass ratio, "e"/"m", was independent of cathode material. He further showed that the negatively charged particles produced by radioactive materials, by heated materials and by illuminated materials were universal. The name electron was adopted for these particles by the scientific community, mainly due to the advocation by G. F. FitzGerald, J. Larmor, and H. A. Lorentz. In the same year Emil Wiechert and Walter Kaufmann also calculated the e/m ratio but they failed short of interpreting their results while J. J. Thomson would subsequently in 1899 give estimates for the electron charge and mass as well: e~ esu and m~ g


title: Electron

text: The electron's charge was more carefully measured by the American physicists Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in their oil-drop experiment of 1909, the results of which were published in 1911. This experiment used an electric field to prevent a charged droplet of oil from falling as a result of gravity. This device could measure the electric charge from as few as 1–150 ions with an error margin of less than 0.3%. Comparable experiments had been done earlier by Thomson's team, using clouds of charged water droplets generated by electrolysis, and in 1911 by Abram Ioffe, who independently obtained the same result as Millikan using charged microparticles of metals, then published his results in 1913. However, oil drops were more stable than water drops because of their slower evaporation rate, and thus more suited to precise experimentation over longer periods of time.


title: Electron

text: Around the beginning of the twentieth century, it was found that under certain conditions a fast-moving charged particle caused a condensation of supersaturated water vapor along its path. In 1911, Charles Wilson used this principle to devise his cloud chamber so he could photograph the tracks of charged particles, such as fast-moving electrons.


title: Electron

text: By 1914, experiments by physicists Ernest Rutherford, Henry Moseley, James Franck and Gustav Hertz had largely established the structure of an atom as a dense nucleus of positive charge surrounded by lower-mass electrons. In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr postulated that electrons resided in quantized energy states, with their energies determined by the angular momentum of the electron's orbit about the nucleus. The electrons could move between those states, or orbits, by the emission or absorption of photons of specific frequencies. By means of these quantized orbits, he accurately explained the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom. However, Bohr's model failed to account for the relative intensities of the spectral lines and it was unsuccessful in explaining the spectra of more complex atoms.


title: Electron

text: Chemical bonds between atoms were explained by Gilbert Newton Lewis, who in 1916 proposed that a covalent bond between two atoms is maintained by a pair of electrons shared between them. Later, in 1927, Walter Heitler and Fritz London gave the full explanation of the electron-pair formation and chemical bonding in terms of quantum mechanics. In 1919, the American chemist Irving Langmuir elaborated on the Lewis's static model of the atom and suggested that all electrons were distributed in successive "concentric (nearly) spherical shells, all of equal thickness". In turn, he divided the shells into a number of cells each of which contained one pair of electrons. With this model Langmuir was able to qualitatively explain the chemical properties of all elements in the periodic table, which were known to largely repeat themselves according to the periodic law.


title: Electron

text: In 1924, Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli observed that the shell-like structure of the atom could be explained by a set of four parameters that defined every quantum energy state, as long as each state was occupied by no more than a single electron. This prohibition against more than one electron occupying the same quantum energy state became known as the Pauli exclusion principle. The physical mechanism to explain the fourth parameter, which had two distinct possible values, was provided by the Dutch physicists Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck. In 1925, they suggested that an electron, in addition to the angular momentum of its orbit, possesses an intrinsic angular momentum and magnetic dipole moment. This is analogous to the rotation of the Earth on its axis as it orbits the Sun. The intrinsic angular momentum became known as spin, and explained the previously mysterious splitting of spectral lines observed with a high-resolution spectrograph; this phenomenon is known as fine structure splitting.


title: Electron

text: In his 1924 dissertation "" (Research on Quantum Theory), French physicist Louis de Broglie hypothesized that all matter can be represented as a de Broglie wave in the manner of light. That is, under the appropriate conditions, electrons and other matter would show properties of either particles or waves. The corpuscular properties of a particle are demonstrated when it is shown to have a localized position in space along its trajectory at any given moment. The wave-like nature of light is displayed, for example, when a beam of light is passed through parallel slits thereby creating interference patterns. In 1927, George Paget Thomson discovered the interference effect was produced when a beam of electrons was passed through thin metal foils and by American physicists Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer by the reflection of electrons from a crystal of nickel.


title: Electron

text: De Broglie's prediction of a wave nature for electrons led Erwin Schrödinger to postulate a wave equation for electrons moving under the influence of the nucleus in the atom. In 1926, this equation, the Schrödinger equation, successfully described how electron waves propagated. Rather than yielding a solution that determined the location of an electron over time, this wave equation also could be used to predict the probability of finding an electron near a position, especially a position near where the electron was bound in space, for which the electron wave equations did not change in time. This approach led to a second formulation of quantum mechanics (the first by Heisenberg in 1925), and solutions of Schrödinger's equation, like Heisenberg's, provided derivations of the energy states of an electron in a hydrogen atom that were equivalent to those that had been derived first by Bohr in 1913, and that were known to reproduce the hydrogen spectrum. Once spin and the interaction between multiple electrons were describable, quantum mechanics made it possible to predict the configuration of electrons in atoms with atomic numbers greater than hydrogen.


title: Electron

text: In 1928, building on Wolfgang Pauli's work, Paul Dirac produced a model of the electron – the Dirac equation, consistent with relativity theory, by applying relativistic and symmetry considerations to the hamiltonian formulation of the quantum mechanics of the electro-magnetic field. In order to resolve some problems within his relativistic equation, Dirac developed in 1930 a model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy, later dubbed the Dirac sea. This led him to predict the existence of a positron, the antimatter counterpart of the electron. This particle was discovered in 1932 by Carl Anderson, who proposed calling standard electrons "negatrons" and using "electron" as a generic term to describe both the positively and negatively charged variants.


title: Electron

text: In 1947, Willis Lamb, working in collaboration with graduate student Robert Retherford, found that certain quantum states of the hydrogen atom, which should have the same energy, were shifted in relation to each other; the difference came to be called the Lamb shift. About the same time, Polykarp Kusch, working with Henry M. Foley, discovered the magnetic moment of the electron is slightly larger than predicted by Dirac's theory. This small difference was later called anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the electron. This difference was later explained by the theory of quantum electrodynamics, developed by Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger and


title: Electron

text: With the development of the particle accelerator during the first half of the twentieth century, physicists began to delve deeper into the properties of subatomic particles. The first successful attempt to accelerate electrons using electromagnetic induction was made in 1942 by Donald Kerst. His initial betatron reached energies of 2.3 MeV, while subsequent betatrons achieved 300 MeV. In 1947, synchrotron radiation was discovered with a 70 MeV electron synchrotron at General Electric. This radiation was caused by the acceleration of electrons through a magnetic field as they moved near the speed of light.


title: Electron

text: particle collider was ADONE, which began operations in 1968. This device accelerated electrons and positrons in opposite directions, effectively doubling the energy of their collision when compared to striking a static target with an electron. The Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) at CERN, which was operational from 1989 to 2000, achieved collision energies of 209 GeV and made important measurements for the Standard Model of particle physics.


title: Electron

text: Individual electrons can now be easily confined in ultra small (, ) CMOS transistors operated at cryogenic temperature over a range of −269 °C (4 K) to about −258 °C (15 K). The electron wavefunction spreads in a semiconductor lattice and negligibly interacts with the valence band electrons, so it can be treated in the single particle formalism, by replacing its mass with the effective mass tensor.


title: Electron

text: In the Standard Model of particle physics, electrons belong to the group of subatomic particles called leptons, which are believed to be fundamental or elementary particles. Electrons have the lowest mass of any charged lepton (or electrically charged particle of any type) and belong to the first-generation of fundamental particles. The second and third generation contain charged leptons, the muon and the tau, which are identical to the electron in charge, spin and interactions, but are more massive. Leptons differ from the other basic constituent of matter, the quarks, by their lack of strong interaction. All members of the lepton group are fermions, because they all have half-odd integer spin; the electron has spin .