Scottish scientists are confident that soon they will be able to offer a fundamentally new approach to planning the time in which a woman decides to have a child. Using ultrasound and mathematical formulas, they can calculate with great accuracy when it comes out of the age at which reproduction is possible.

Scientists have long known about the dependence of the number of follicles in the ovaries on the size of the latter, but it was not possible to deduce the corresponding formula before. But it is known that the number of follicles that give rise to oocytes determines the timing of the end of the reproductive period. Now they can predict menopause in advance.

The authors of the study, whose results appeared on the pages of the journal Human Reproduction, noted that it would be necessary to experimentally confirm their assumptions. Such an experiment involving healthy women can take up to 20 years, however, much earlier the method will help those women who underwent courses of treatment against tumors and lost a significant part of the follicles.

As one of the authors of the work, Dr. Hemish Wallace (Hamish Wallace), a children's oncologist from the University of Edinburgh, test methods in this category of patients have already begun.

For such women, the results are particularly important, since the damaging effects of chemotherapeutic drugs can significantly reduce the age at which a child can be raised.

Researchers plan to begin research with healthy women in the near future. They believe that the methodology will help to make a more correct decision to those who, for personal or professional reasons, would like to postpone the birth of a child for a later period. So far, according to them, there is no method of predicting the end of reproductive age.

Medicus. En.

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