In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Cheryl Hawkes discuss the increasing scientific evidence that maternal obesity affects the developing fetal brain. While many of the effects manifest early, in infant temperament and childhood cognitive (IQ) decrements, other effects do not show up until years later, in adult psychiatric and neurodegenerative problems. The physical bases for these changes in fetal brains are also clearly evidenced in laboratory model systems, such as mice, where the maternal diets can be controlled, and the offspring not only can be given behavioral tests, but their brains can be dissected to reveal the changes in the blood vessels caused by obese mothers.

Key Takeaways:

• Children born to obese mothers have lower IQs and poorer motor, spatial, and verbal skills.

• Mice and rodents have similar brain development to humans, which is why rodent study models are so beneficial to science.

• Brain maturation takes many years. Your brain is fully formed at birth, but continues to mature and change into your mid-twenties.

"Because of the rise in obesity globally, a lot of people have started to look, rather than looking at famine…, to now shift our attention to looking at the long-term effects of obesity because 30% of women around the world, over the age of 18, are now considered to be obese." — Dr. Cheryl Hawkes

Connect with Dr. Cheryl Hawkes:

Lancaster University Profile: Dr. Cheryl Hawkes

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Diane Tober discuss the global egg donation industry, highlighting its lack of regulations and exploitative nature. Dr. Tober details some of her research on egg donors, revealing severe risks and some life-threatening complications that can affect 10-12% of donors. They discuss how donors are often uninformed about the risks and the pressures faced by donors to donate beyond current guidelines. With compensation varying wildly, there are often financial pressures that donors face, too. Finally, Dr. Tober advocates for standardized informed consent, actual limits on donation cycles, and a national registry to track donor health.

Key Takeaways:

• Changes to preserving and freezing eggs in 2013 changed from slow freezing to flash freezing, which better preserved the egg and changed the industry.

• Not having limits on the number of children that can be born from donated sperm or eggs can have dire consequences for the people conceived from those donations.

• There are discrepancies in compensation based on education, race, and other traits that are considered to be desirable for intended parents.

• There are no consistent laws or regulations regarding who pays for donor medical complications.

• There is no perfect system currently existing for egg donation. But creating a safer system could begin with a donor registry.

"Sometimes donors exceed the limit because of the financial incentives, and sometimes donors exceed the limit because they're coerced or enticed by the agencies or clinics that are using them and profiting off of them." — Dr. Diane Tober

Connect with Dr. Diane Tober:

Professional Bio: https://issr.ua.edu/people/diane-tober/

Website: https://dianetober.com/

Book: Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianetober/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectdonor/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DianeToberPhD/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Kim Mutcherson discuss the legal and ethical implications of the increasing number of frozen embryos and the complications of assisted reproductive technologies. With an estimated over 1 million frozen embryos in the United States, this is a complex topic, particularly around state laws, embryo disposition, the financial costs of IVF, and the potential increased regulation and legal challenges moving forward.

Key Takeaways:

• There is no hard data on how many embryos are currently frozen around the world, but there are estimated to be millions.

• States differ, legally speaking, as to whether an embryo is considered a person. How do we determine what obligations related people have to an embryo?.

• There are many different options for what you can have done with your embryos, and those outcomes should be included in the contract before any medical care is provided. Because laws regarding frozen embryos vary from state to state and this should be considered when people are looking to set up a clinic or go through the process.

"Once you have created a business - an industry - that creates human beings, it is inevitable that you are going to run into all sorts of really difficult issues. You can't get around it. It's just the nature of the thing. And so if we're going to have this industry, and if it's going to exist, we're going to constantly be asking ourselves difficult legal questions, difficult ethical questions, and difficult moral questions." — Kim Mutcherson

Connect with Kim Mutcherson:

Professional Bio: https://law.rutgers.edu/kimberly-mutcherson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-mutcherson/

X: https://x.com/ProfessorMutch

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.