Insemination Aided by Position

Lie Back, No Need to Think

Related Topics: Fertility, parenting, women, Fertility, infertility, intrauterine insemination, iui, pregnancy

The (possibly apocryphal) advice given to Victorian women who weren’t fond of sex to “lie back and think of England,” may actually be useful to increase the odds of conception, at least following intra-uterine insemination (IUI).

A new study found that 27% of women who were advised to lie still for 15 minutes after insemination became pregnant and had a successful birth—compared to just 18% of those who were told to get up and move around immediately after the procedure.

The study—which looked at 391 women who were randomized to either lie down or get up immediately afterwards—was published in the most recent edition of the British Medical Journal. During the IUI procedure, the woman lies on her back while sperm is introduced through the cervix into the womb. It typically takes only a few minutes and usually involves no more discomfort than a pap smear.

IUI can be done either “naturally” without advance administration of hormonal medications and timed to the woman’s ovulation—or it may involve hormones to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs. Natural cycles carry no extra risk of multiple births—but medicated cycles frequently result in twins or higher numbers of multiples (Associated risks were covered by the New York Times in a sobering recent article here, which unfortunately failed to note that there is no increased risk for natural cycles).

Common sense would suggest that lying still after sex when trying to conceive might allow gravity to help the sperm reach the egg—but there has been only one small prior study suggesting that lying still after IUI does actually aid conception. Although there’s no data about whether this helps when trying to conceive the old-fashioned way– and none about whether what the woman thinks about matters– this suggests that 15 minutes spent lounging afterwards couldn’t hurt.

Roti More Expensive than a SMS

Democracy Is The Best Revenge…

…but revenge against whom? 

	MILITARY   DICTATOR	DEMOCRACY
ATAA (per KG)	13 Rupees	31 Rupees
SUGAR (per KG)	21 Rupees	70 Rupees
MILK (Per Liter)	32 Rupees	46 Rupees
MOTORCYCLE	53,000 Rupees	63,000 Rupees
AIR CONDITIONER	30,000 Rupees	40,000 Rupees
STOCK MARKET	16000 points	9000 points
US DOLLAR $	60 Rupees	86 Rupees
GST	11%	16%
TAX ON CALL	15%	19%
PETROL (Per Liter)	45 Rupees	71 Rupees

SMS  and  ROTI  

2003 SMS Roti Rs.   6.00 Rs.   2.00     2004 SMS Roti Rs.   5.00 Rs.  2.50     2005 SMS Roti Rs.   2.00 Rs.   3.00     2008 SMS Roti Rs.   0.23  Rs.   5.00     2009 SMS Roti Rs.   0.010  Rs.   7.00

Child Prostitution Rampant on Brazilian Highways

At least 1,819 places on Brazilian highways have been identified by the police where minor girls and teens offer sex to truck drivers.

The report based on a police study added that every 26.7 km stretch along these highways have spots where minors offer sex for as little as 2 reais ($1.10).

A map prepared with the help of the ILO shows the likely places for child prostitution. It includes all the petrol pumps, bars, restaurants and night spots along the highways. Many minors have been caught offering sex at these spots.

The police are now planning to use this study towards increasing their oversight, but the results will not be made public.

‘We believed that identifying the spots would stop crimes from being committed, but we found that it only causes a migration to other places,’ the president of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal Highway Police in Sao Paulo, Waldiwilson dos Santos, said.
‘Now we’re going to maintain secrecy so as not to undermine our operations,’ he said.

Latest Media Curbs After the Waziristan Operation

The Pakistan army has imposed censorship by various means on the independent news coming out of the areas where the army is conducting operations against militants. Officers of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), are reported to have been calling media officials to their offices and telling them to stop covering the news independently and to use only the ISPR press notes or information from the daily briefings of the ISPR.

Prior to the start of the South Waziristan operation (Oct 17),
representatives from the print and electronic media and also
journalists were reportedly asked by the army not to publish or air
independent views about the operation for fear that it will provide
assistance to the militants.

The journalists are only allowed to remain at Dera Ismail Khan, where persons displaced by the military operations are arriving for
aid.

During the normal course of the day journalists are prevented
from entering operational areas and the restrictions are rigidly
applied.

It is only when the military is successful in some phase of
the operation that they allow media personnel to cover that specific situation. Since the operation started, the military has taken selected journalists on helicopter tours to the affected areas on only two occasions. The journalists have been taken from Islamabad, and from Peshawar. However, they were not allowed to move about freely or without supervision.

The BBC Urdu service, a popular radio programme in the country, is disliked by the army as it broadcasts interviews through telephone calls directly from the military operation zones. In the effort to stop the BBC Urdu programmes, particularly its Sairbeen programme, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) was used to stop the many FM radio stations who broadcast the BBC Urdu news on the hour, 16 hours a day. Those stations are: FM 103, FM106.2, FM 107, FM Apna, FM Ninety-One, FM Okara, FM Highway and FM Gujrat and Islamabad.
On the other hand the BBC Urdu broadcast was not stopped in Pakistani held Kashmir.

The BBC Urdu news has been broadcasting from different FM channels, under agreement with the BBC Broadcasting house for two years but PEMRA has turned a blind eye to their broadcasts. Since the start of the military operation in South Waziristan, however, PEMRA has been reportedly asked to put pressure on the broadcasting houses that relay the BBC Urdu news.

The ISPR has increased its pressure on the media and in the latest
development an official of the BBC Pakistan was called to the ISPR
head office, Islamabad on November 2, and asked not to
broadcast the interviews or statements of the militants as it would
create misunderstanding among the people of Pakistan. The officer who spoke to the BBC official asked him why Hakim Ullah Mehsood (the head of the Taliban, Pakistan) spoke directly to the BBC over the telephone. Hakeem Ullah Mehsood, the army declared, is a notorious terrorist. The previous week, a BBC Pakistan reporter stationed at Peshawar, was telephoned by an army officer and told not to interview the residents of the areas affected by the military operation and also not to entertain the Taliban in any way. On another occasion some journalists were told that human rights violations take second place to the importance of the army’s action against the militants and their activities.

According to a responsible authority at the BBC Pakistan office, the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Salman Basheer, spoke to the British High Commissioner at Islamabad on November 2, and asked him to pressurise the BBC Urdu news not to issue interviews of the terrorists and residents of the affected areas. This message was duly conveyed to the BBC Pakistan.

PEMRA has ordered some radio stations not to broadcast BBC Urdu-language news programmes, while Parliament, (at the same time), is preparing to ratify drastic censorship dating from the era of General Musharraf.

The parliamentary information committee chaired by an MP from the ruling PPP on 29 October, decided that legal provisions on electronic media set out in November 2007, should be incorporated into the PEMRA act. These articles ban TV stations
from broadcasting footage that could “disturb the public order”
including statements from extremist groups, or those ridiculing or
defaming the head of state, the armed forces or the judicial system.
Programme presenters are targeted in clause 6 that bans them from putting out any news “prejudicial to Pakistan’s ideology” and
state sovereignty.

These draconian provisions were revoked by the former information minister, Sherry Rehman, after the PPP was returned to power. This decision, which had been supported by some opposition parties, was linked to growing criticism of government management of public affairs.

The committee also planned to set up councils in the four provinces and the federal capital to accept complaints from citizens about media content.

The situation of undeclared censorship of the media by the Army and its organisations is alarming for the growth of healthy
journalism in the country. The actions of military and paramilitary
organisations provide a good space for the militant groups and other political groups to use force against the media which would be harmful for the development of democracy and democratic institutions. In the presence of civilian rule and civilian laws, the security agencies do not have any authority to influence the free working of the media.

According to all international norms and standards and the
Constitution of Pakistan access to information is the right of the
people and people cannot be denied this fundamental right.