labellementeuse | (no subject)

Hey Kiwis! Check out the cover for North & South magazine this month, headline: Test-tube babies: A NEW SPECIES?

Not only is this hilariously tabloid, it directly contradicts a quote within the mag. A study has recently been performed on a limited sample of IVF babies (140 participants, half IVF half not, only fresh not frozen, no premature births, no multiple births - which is about half of all IVF births - kids only between 5 and 11) and found that IVF babies are slightly taller, slimmer, and have basically better cholesterol than all of y'all normals. One of the guys who did the study said that he specifically didn't want to be frightening with talk of a new species or whatever - so naturally that's what North and South did on the cover.

I actually would be interested in reading the study, if only to find out whether or not this shit is adjusted for variables like wealth and so forth. It's all very well to invent some explanation about environments outside the womb, but IVF is 1. expensive unless you got it funded 2. difficult. This implies things like, for example, IVF births are not likely to be accidental births. IVF parents are going to be very prepared for pregnancy and are going to have spent a lot of time on their environment (physical, i.e. folic acid, especially) to prove that. IVF parents are probably wealthier than other parents. etc. So I would like to know if this study corrects for that or not.

I am an IVF baby, BTW, which is why I find this interesting.

Threaded | Flat

[singing] Correlation~ does not imply causation~~

...but yeah, lol that's why I don't like science in the media. I remember this one time, my research methods professor, who specializes in auditory language processing, was talking about how she used to like to watch science shorts on national news networks until the one time she caught a section on her area of focus, at which point she was like "...uhhhhh" xD like, even if the science is sound, the news people will blow it all out of proportion to make a story out of it.

I swear, I read that headline and was instantly transported back to Te Putaiao. Particularly the lecture we spent half the hour debating whether or not you had to whakapapa back to a pig if you received a pig organ (xenotransplantation, which seemed to be a huge issue with the lecturer but isn't really done that often at all.)

Fascinating study though. It'd be interesting to see the data behind it.

North & South has always been a fairly alarmist magazine in my experience.

It would be amusing if they followed through and found out that the upper middle class in general were a separate species due to their greater height, lower weight, lower cholesterol etc.

I'm pretty sure that IVF is expensive and time-consuming even if you *do* get it funded. Added to that, the poor are far more likely have children earlier - delaying childbirth 'till your thirties or forties, an important cause of IVF, is a very middle/upper class deal. I just don't see *how* they could have corrected for socioeconomic status, really. Or, as you mentioned, all the preparation stuff - which is definitely correlated to factors like adult weight.

OTOH, it would be pretty bad science if they hadn't thought about that stuff - shockingly so - so I'd have to read the paper before passing judgement there. I just had a look on Scopus and I can't find it, but then, I have no idea what the search terms should be, so. Any info on author/journal of publication?

If they wanted to actually look at whether they were a different species (which clearly isn't a series hypothesis but whatevs) it would have been more useful to look at the children of IVF babies. The other interesting thing, though I've no idea if they could get a big enough sample size, would be to look at children born to same couple, one with IVF and one without.

But yeah. North and South kind of fails.

OMG ur a nu SPECIES no wai!

It is dissapointing to look at the media isn't it?

Do you have any details about the study authors, journal published in etc? And does North & SOuth really not have a website?

I would really like to read this study and see a long term version of it - tracing the children from, say, 5 to 21 or something, just to give it real substance. It would be interesting to see if the factors they uncover actually withstand the test of time.

Also, IVF babies is a very broad term, even with the characteristics you mentioned. IVF pertains to both those of the parents in question and from egg/sperm donors. I'd be interested to read the full parameters. *scours journal data bases*