Nancy said:  A big change since I was having babies (1975) is that we have
so much infertility now and assistance for these couples.  For many of the
couples  I've worked with, the arrival of that first child is happily
achieved against a backdrop of the grief of babies lost.  Perhaps there is
more going on in  that dyad than we have identified, not to mention the
possibility of milk supply problems, etc.



I highly recommend watching the video at this link, if you can - scary, but
may explain many things related to miscarriage, fertility and birth
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/disappearingmale/index.html



From 2007:

The Disappearing Male
by Kate Melville

A new study from the University of Pittsburgh has found that during the past
thirty years, the number of male births has steadily decreased in the U.S.
and Japan. Perhaps more worryingly, the study, published in Environmental
Health Perspectives, also found that an increasing proportion of fetuses
that die are male. In Japan, among the fetuses that die, two-thirds are
male, up from just over half in 1970.

The study reported an overall decline of 17 males per 10,000 births in the
U.S. and a decline of 37 males per 10,000 births in Japan since 1970. Lead
investigator Devra Lee Davis said the figures translated to 135,000 fewer
males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan.

Davis suggests that environmental factors may be one explanation for the
shrinking male birth rate. "The pattern of decline in the ratio of male to
female births remains largely unexplained," she explained. "We know that men
who work with some solvents, metals and pesticides father fewer baby boys.
We also know that nutritional factors, physical health and chemical
exposures of pregnant women affect their ability to have children and the
health of their offspring. We suspect that some combination of these
factors, along with older age of parents, may account for decreasing male
births."

The study notes that prenatal exposure to endocrine disrupting environmental
pollutants may impact the SRY gene - a gene on the Y chromosome that
determines the sex of a fertilized egg. Other environmental factors that
also may affect the viability of a male fetus include the parents' weight,
nutrition and the use of alcohol and drugs.

"Given the importance of reproduction for the health of any species, the
trends we observed in the U.S. and Japan merit concern," said Davis. "In
light of our findings, more detailed studies should be carried out that
examine sex ratio in smaller groups with defined exposures as a potential
indicator of environmental contamination."

Ingrid




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