Medford mail tribune., June 09, 1963, Image 46

Family Weekly J
June 9, 198 S
Lawrence and Patricia Ford with
their son Randy. Another baby, is on the way.
BAfi BARREN
Prospects for parenthood have increased greatly; now one out of three couples
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FOR the first three years of their
marriage, Patricia and Larry Ford,
of Columbus, Ohio, lived under a con
tinual strain. ,
They wanted very much to start raising a fam
ily. But Patty blonde, blue-eyed, and ordinarily
a cheerfully bubbling young woman had en
dometriosis, a common disease of the uterus
which prevents reproduction. Month after frus
trating month she waited, aware that the longer
the ailment persisted, the less were her chances
of ever achieving motherhood.
Patty's doctors tried surgery, but it didn't help.
Then she went through a long series of examina
tions and testa sione of which had positive re
sults. "I was tired of going around in circles,"
Patty recalled the other day. "Visiting my doctor
was a nightmare. And at my bridge club, all my
friends had babies, and that's all they talked
about I grew irritable and despondent and quit
the club because I felt left out.
"At 30, I knew my chances were getting slim
mer. Larry and I thought of adoption. Once I
heard of a baby that we might get, and we were
seriously tempted but instead I told another
couple about it. You see, we still had hopes.'.'
Then one day Patty read in a newspaper that
a prominent professor of obstetrics and gyne
cology at Ohio State University Medical School
had received a grant for a special research pro
ject involving infertility. Patty went to see him.
The doctor told, her he was clinically testing a
new hormone pill, dydrogesterone. Did she want
to try it? Patty jumped at the opportunity.
"It was my last resort," she says. "There
seemed nothing left for me to do."
For four months, Patty took the hormone pill.
During the fifth month she became pregnant
COVER:
Ouie Sweet photographs champion golfer
Jack S'icklaus, who at tS is the youngest
ever to win the Masters Tournament. He
will also be the favorite in the U. S.
Open next week. ,S' his story on page H.
Family
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Once childless, Margerite and Larry K
Oates now have two sons, David and Scott, n
MARRIAGE
By THEODORE IRWIN I
who seem to be "permanently" childless can have youngsters of their own
"When my obstetrician confirmed the news, we
went kind of wild," Patty says. "It was my
Christmas . present to the baby's grandparents.
Larry and I celebrated by going dining and danc
ing. Of course, I thanked my doctor and told him,
'You did the impossible,' but he merely grinned.
"When we had Randy our baby I felt there
was a completion in our marriage that wasn't
there before. He is such a joy to us. And you
know I joined the bridge club again. I love to
talk about babies now."
In July, Patty will have another child. This
pregnancy came with no delay, but she is taking
the pills to be sure she will retain the baby.
In another section of Columbus, pert, pretty,
dark-eyed Mrs. Margerite (Peggy) Oates a
former Miss Ohio also had gone through a pe
riod of despair, convinced she would never have
a baby. Peggy, too, had endometriosis. A year
after her marriage, an ovary had to be removed.
"I felt panicky," she says. "Life had no mean
ing without children." -
Another Success Story
. Like Patty, Peggy became part of the profes
sor's project at University Hospital and took
the dydrogesterone pills. Peggy's mother had
some qualms about her using a new drug because
of the furor over thalidomide, which had caused
tragic birth deformities. But Peggy, who is a
nurse (her husband is a medical student), had
complete confidence in her obstetrician.
"I was eager," she says, "to do anything
which offered a ray of promise."
In January, 1962, Peggy gave birth to a
healthy, bouncing son, Scott Last February she
had a second baby, David. On a recent afternoon,
as a husky little Scotty toddled around her living
room, Peggy remarked : "When you produce
something like this with a pill, anything is worth
trying. I've been saved a lifetime of heartache."
Recently, the professor invited to lunch a group
of patients who had taken the hormone pills suc
cessfully.. One woman in her mid-30s had been
trying in vain to have a baby for nine years.
Another had had six miscarriages. A third had
had one child, then had gone for years without
another pregnancy.
. Elsewhere in the nation, through other fertility
drugs and techniques, prospects are brightening
for women who have been denied motherhood.
At least one out of 10 married couples in the U.S.
have difficulty in having children. To these 8,000,
000 people, infertility is a baffling and heart
breaking deprivation. One of the most touching
appeals a doctor hears is, "We want to have a
child, but we've tried and failed. Please, can you
help us?"
Today, the good news is that, through ad
vances of medical science and increasing knowl
edge by doctors, one out of three couples (and
even 50 percent of certain types) who seem to be
"permanently" sterile can be guided toward a
family enriched by a nursery. Medical author
ities are emphatic about the progress being made.
"Many conditions which couldn't be corrected a
few years ago now can be cured," points out Dr.
A. J. Sobrero, a New York infertility specialist.
Hormone treatment probably is the major con
tributor to this advance. A vast amount of in
fertility is due to hormone deficiences, according
to Dr. Jacoba C. de Neef, Ohio State University
gynecologist. The new dydrogesterone pill, a syn
thetic substitute for the female hormone pro
gesterone, is being used to treat a broad range of
menstrual disorders as well as to prevent mis
carriages. After years of testing, it has been
cleared by the Food and Drug Administration
and made available to all doctors. In one series
of tests with the drug, Dr. Matt H. Backer, Jr., of
the St Louis University School of Medicine, re
ported that 78 percent of hitherto infertile pa
tients maintained a successful pregnancy.
A Drug for Hormone Deficiency
Another hormone drug, hydroxyprogesteron
caproate, also has proved effective with about
four out of five women who previously had had
three or more consecutive miscarriages. For
women who have a hormone deficiency, such
drugs provide a suitable "nest" in which the
embryo can grow if conception occurs.
Other drugs such as cortisone can stimulate
defective ovaries. And when Fallopian-tube sur
gery is necessary, the operation is successful in
at least half the cases, says Dr. John Rock,
Harvard gynecologist
On the theory that some women have repeated
miscarriages because they are allergic to their
husbands, doctors at Tufts Medical School in Bos
ton have grafted a small patch of skin from the
husband to the wife's arm. The idea is to "im
munize" her against irritant substances within
the husband. Results so far indicate that most
of the women went on to have uneventful preg
nancies. Some who had miscarried as many as
eight times delivered normal babies.
To help the childless, a doctor must first get at
the causes, of which there is a bewildering va
riety. A wife may be unable to conceive because
of a disease, faulty development of reproductive
organs, failure of endocrine glands to function,
a defect in the nervous system, or a chronic in
fection. Fatigue, poor diet, lack of exercise, and
. overweight also can be responsible.
But in at least one-third of the cases, Infertil
ity is due to some obstruction in the Fallopian
tubes. The blockage may be caused by infection
or a noncancerous growth in the womb's wall.
This is where surgery helps.
Men May Be at Fault, Too
But wives are not entirely at fault. In two out
of five cases, lack of an heir can be traced to the
husband. Male sterility may be the aftermath of
mumps as an adult or it might result from an
injury, excessive drinking, or a disease like un
dulant fever. Sometimes it may stem from a
man's job an X-ray technician, for instance.
Can the roots of infertility be purely psy
chological? Many medical authorities contend
that emotional conflicts fear of childbirth, poor
adjustment to marriage, a feud with in-laws can
interfere with reproductive processes by causing
spasms of the Fallopian tubes. Nervous tension
can clog the tubes as one's throat chokes up dur
ing an emotional crisis.
Psychiatrists often have encountered infertile
women who became pregnant once their emotional
barriers were removed. The mere decision to seek
medical help may improve a couple's chances. At
the Duke University fertility clfnic, as well as
at the Yale clinic, it was found that a great many
"infertile" women became pregnant shortly after
their first visit Since medical treatment would
not have been effective so soon, this seems to bear
out the psychological factor. Dr. Alan E. Gut
macher, the distinguished New York obstetrician
and gynecologist, says: "Apparently medical at
tention reduces anxiety and creates a favorable,
relaxed atmosphere for conception."
Whatever the underlying causes, they must be
pinpointed before a suitable remedy, can be rec
ommended. Like a detective, the doctor has to
solve the mystery, first determining the degree
of infertility and then uncovering the reasons
(Continued on page 4)
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