Dr. Ricardo Moreno: "advances in medicine and science should consider bioethical bases".

The possibility of extending the reproductive life of human beings is something that would certainly determine significant changes in our processes as species within the planet. From in vitro fertilization, to advanced genetic techniques, there are multiple contributions that science has developed to encourage birth, in a world - indeed - aging out. However, the creation of a scenario in which fertility go above the age - biologically recommended ranges to give light - is questionable from the Bioethics perspective. For some scientists and doctors, fertility seems to have no limits, and thanks to the knowledge about the matter and the resources that are available, have made it possible for women exceeding 60 to become pregnant.

(In 2008, 70-year-old Rajo Devi got pregnant with his son Naveen).

In biological terms, menopause marks a precedent that disrupts the possibility that women can conceive a pregnancy. So this option find handle, are techniques such as insemination and the use of drugs that stabilize and strengthen the uterus.

Countries such as India have numerous cases (proportionally) of women over 50 years old that have been or will be mothers. Under this situation, there are various implications that couples want to be parents, even when your temporary watch tells them that it is not advisable, or that full, they can even do it. Among these variables is a religious paradigm, which indicates that the realization of man its made by complies with the task of child-bearing. In this scenario, both men and women in some areas of India, considered that by generating offspring receive higher energy levels that approach them with the deities in which deposit their religious beliefs. The laws, on the other hand, do not determine limits age for pregnancy in women over 50 years old.

In order to understand the corresponding to this topic bioethical implications, the biology society of Chile, spoke with Dr. Ricardo Moreno, who is a Doctor in biological sciences from the Catholic University Pontificia of Chile and has a degree in biological sciences in the same House of studies. Dr. Moreno made his post-doctorate in Physiology (UC) specializing in spermatogenesis, oogenesis and fertilization at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.

Professional science - currently - taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Faculty of Sciences biological of the Pontifical University Catholic of Chile. Undergraduate courses include: bioethics, Animal reproduction and biology of the cell, while in postgraduate: cell communication and signalling in development.

Then the interview that the society of biology of Chile made to Dr. Moreno, around the controversy of women over age 50 who become pregnant.

What do you think about the fact that women over the age of 50 years, and in a special case in India, more than 70 years, become pregnant?

First I should note that these events were not achieved because possible biologically, since at age 70 you can not have children. Now, formerly in nature, human expectations were short and hopefully long before that happens today. This is due to that with technological and scientific advances we have been extending our life expectancy. In times of Julio Cesar, for example, there was no pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease, because people died when the 40 or 50 years, bone before submitting evidence linked to pathologies of aging. However, there are biological regulations that maintain stability in time, menopause is one of them.

Women generally reach menopause between 40 and 50 years, which led to the current life cycle determine that a woman of 70 to 80, will spend nearly a third of his life without be able to get pregnant naturally.

How can one 50-year-old woman get pregnant?

Reproductive medicine has invented some techniques to replace what makes biology, and that older women can have children was achieved thanks to the fact that there are techniques such as in vitro fertilization. These practices are not carried out using their own eggs, but they are donated.

In the case of the sperm, the situation is not so drastic, and man may still be the biological father, since it produces gametes until a very advanced age. But as the years pass, the male loses their sperm quality and for that reason most of these fertilization are carried out with the help of younger men sperm banking.

On the other hand, and once to thaw both the oocyte and sperm, occurs in vitro fertilization and early embryo development proceeds, implanted in the uterus of the woman (in this case greater than 50 years).

What are the risks from the bioethical point of view involved in these procedures?

This imposes several risks from the point of view of health and bioethics.

While a couple may want to have a child, this does not imply that terrible physiological consequences there are. A woman of 50, 60 or 70 years pregnant, will produce itself a metabolic disorder that her biological clock is not suitable to deal with. The risk having suffering pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes is higher that face a woman under 50, and even to the 45.

While life expectancy has increased, today people depend, increasingly, professional and economic development. In that scenario, it is expected that parents who have children will be able to take care of them. There also enters the discussion of what is a father?, which gives birth or which breeds, or both.

If these elderly parents die, and are aware of it, would be delivered to your child to third parties, once born? A person at the age of 70 does not have a wide range to designing a life with a baby. It is a reproductive privilege to have a son, not a right, and humans should listen to nature and understanding the natural and biological development of our body.

In these cases that there are biological dilemmas, physicians are empowered to offer patients all kinds of progress, or considers that there is a limit to this? If not only science can fix, but will enhance certain genes would medicine offer parents changes in certain characteristics in your child correct?

There are those who say that that already is becoming, more my question focuses on citizenship and the scientific and medical community arises if it is correct. On the other hand, there are currents of bioethics as the trans-humanismo that promotes that any technological advance, that promote an improvement in the human species, should be applied, without question. Many of the doctors who do this require advertising and worldwide fame, it is likely that your inquiry grows and profits are considerable.

Salvatore Anatori was a doctor who made a 60-year-old woman to give birth a baby, after the event was made world famous. With this, I want to stress that it must be careful with the purposes of reproductive medicine and the use of scientific research in the personal interest.

Line of investigation:

Dr. Moreno works to understand how in vitro fertilization is achieved from the biological point of view and affects how environmental pollution of plastics and diesel in this process.

"Pollution is a very important factor in the development of fertilization in vitro. All floating toxic compounds affect sperm and the endocrine system,"says Dr. Moreno finally.

Source: Patricio Grunert Alarcon, all the rights reserved. ®
4ID / CONGRESS, all the rights reserved. ®
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Quote as source a: Patricio Grunert Alarcón.

Dr. Ricardo Moreno, tall rights reserved. ®