Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Dilemma of the Day: modern reproductive strategies

One one hand, in today's society people get married and have children when they are over thirty and forty. This trend relates to increased amounts of time spent on education, carrier building, and partner selection.
On the other hand, research shows that "genetic disease is more likely in the children of older fathers".

Therefore, to ensure mature partner choices, marriage should be delayed. But to avoid the likelihood of genetic diseases of the offspring, marriage should happen earlier in one's life.

The dilemma can be solved by applying the Separation in Time principle: marriage is delayed (best time to choose a mate), but sperm and eggs are selected and tested way before marriage (best time to get the genetic material).

One implementation of the solution, e.g. by using frozen eggs, got a boost from a recent study:

EGG freezing looks increasingly promising as an insurance policy for women who need or want to delay having children, according to the first systematic monitoring of success rates for IVF using eggs that were frozen then thawed out.

It's highly likely that future babies will be born to older parents using their "young" genetic material.

problem, solution, dilemma, separation, health

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