NATURE ITSELF REBELS

Bone Fragments Tied to Infertility (Rick Weiss, April 28, 2003, Washington Post)

Unexplained infertility in otherwise healthy women may sometimes be caused by the presence of fetal bone fragments left embedded in the uterus after a previous abortion, according to a new report that offers a novel approach to resolving the problem.

Evidence has been accumulating for years that small pieces of fetal bone can sometimes get left behind after an abortion, causing a chronic irritation in the uterus that can interfere with subsequent pregnancies. Sometimes the bone fragments can be seen with a hysteroscope -- a tube with a tiny camera at the end that allows a doctor to look inside a woman's uterus. But many such cases of infertility go undiagnosed and unexplained.

Now a new case report, published in the April issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility, helps explain the difficulty in recognizing this problem. Doctors at the University of Ottawa found that in some cases these bone fragments can work their way into the muscular uterine lining, making them invisible even with a hysteroscope.

Woman was surely not meant to be a walking ossuary. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2003 9:23 AM