If you’re planning to have a baby, quitting smoking sooner rather than later will lower your chance of having a “low birth weight” baby. And the longer you smoke during pregnancy, the greater your baby’s risk. That’s the conclusion of a large study looking at the timing of smoking cessation and the risk of low birth weight or LBW (weighing less than 2.5kg).

While the festive season can be wonderful, it can also be challenging if you’ve been trying for a baby for a while without success.

The health of people before conception and when they conceive affects the health of their pregnancy and child. That’s why it’s important for people who want to have a baby to be as heathy as possible before they start trying. People wanting to conceive should aim to be a healthy weight, not smoke, limit alcohol intake, excercise regularly, eat well and avoid some chemicals to give their baby the best start to life.

IVF is often a last resort for women and couples who have tried for a long time to get pregnant. Of those who try IVF, only about half have a baby as a result of treatment. But new research shows that within five years of ending IVF, whether they were successful or not, about one in six women have a baby without IVF.

Since the first IVF baby was born some 40 years ago, more than 7 million people have been born as a result of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) such as IVF. Studies over the years have shown that babies born after ART are more likely to be born prematurely and to weigh less at birth, and they have a slightly greater risk of birth defects. However, by the time they become adults, research has previously shown that they are just healthy as other people.

The challenges of international surrogacy highlighted in Nine’s ‘The Embassy’.

Victorian sexual and reproductive health education is undergoing a transformation with the launch of new teaching resources for schools at the annual conference of the Science Teachers’ Association of Victoria Inc in Melbourne.

A ground-breaking new sexuality teaching resource has been launched today by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) and Family Planning Victoria (FPV).

New regulations made under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Regulations 2019 (the new regulations), start on December 13, 2019, and replace the earlier regulations which will no longer operate.

New donor conception laws were implemented in Victoria on 1 March 2017. This world-first legislation gives all people conceived in Victorian from egg and sperm donation the right to know their donor’s identity.