科学是第一生育力：更多人将告别不孕不育

现在，越来越多的美国女性选择晚一点再要孩子。而生育追踪和试管婴儿等技术的出现，则帮助了女性能够在她们想要的时候怀孕。

在本周三召开的《财富》脑力风暴健康大会上，与会专家们畅谈了这些生育技术的前景与局限，并畅想了它们将对人类未来的生育模式带来哪些影响。

一些公司认为，女性在生育上的首要问题是缺乏生育方面的知识。如生殖预测公司Celmatix的产品总监安吉•李就表示：“越来越多的女性对她们的生殖健康缺乏一个基本的了解。”Clematix公司建立了世界上第一种针对生殖健康的全面基因筛查，从而能够帮助女性评估她们的生殖健康风险。“有些不孕不育的女性会说：‘我真希望我能早知道这些问题。’我们希望这项筛查能帮助女性提早了解这些信息。”

在生殖领域的创新还不止于此，终有一天，这些技术能让更多不孕不育的父母怀上他们朝思暮想的孩子——比如近来引起很大争议的“三父母试管婴儿”技术。不过目前这种技术的试验还只能在美国以外的国家进行。比如三父母试管婴儿技术研发者之一、新希望生殖医学中心主任张进（John Zhang）医生就曾表示：“我花了20年时间才意识到我们的国家是如此的保守”。

就连一些已经被广泛应用的技术也依然存在着一定的阻碍。比如不孕不育症的治疗费用经常是相当高昂的，而且卵子冷冻等技术又不一定总能保证怀孕。耶鲁大学妇产科与生殖医学临床教授玛丽•简•米肯表示：“我们不能保证一定会成功，这仍是一个新生事物。”

尽管存在以上这些问题，但是对于很多女人来说，有了一种选择总比走投无路要强得多。生殖记录公司Glow的副董事长兼美国运营总监詹妮弗•泰伊表示：“卵子和胚胎冷冻技术给了你更多的时间，我认为这为女性赋予了更多可能。”

目前生殖医学技术面临的种种限制不免令人感到失望，但专家们普遍认为，未来依然是充满希望的。米肯指出，当下女性也有很多办法可以改善自己的生殖健康，比如保持健康的体重，不要吸烟，提前了解家族中的其他女性都是在什么年龄绝经的，等等。（财富中文网）

本文原载于Time.com。

译者：朴成奎

More women in the United States are having children later in life, and the emergence of technologies like fertility trackers and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are helping women conceive at a point in their life they prefer.

At the Fortune Brainstorm Health Conference on Wednesday, experts debated the promises and limitations of these kinds of frontier technologies—and speculated on what kind of impact they would have on the future of fertility.

Some companies are tackling what they see as the first problem: a lack of knowledge about fertility. “More and more women need a basic understanding of their reproductive health,” says Angie Lee, chief product officer of Celmatix, a fertility-prediction company. Celmatix created the world’s first comprehensive genetic screening test for reproductive health, which helps women assess their risk for fertility problems. “Women who are experiencing infertility will say, ‘I wish I had known.’ We want to empower women to have as much of that information up front.”

Innovations further down the line, like IVF that uses DNA from three parents, could one day help more couples who are struggling to conceive. But currently, experimentation for these technologies is limited to countries outside the U.S. “It took me 20 years to realize our country is very conservative,” said Dr. John Zhang, founder and director of New Hope Fertility Clinic and one of the creators of the technique used for the world’s first three-person baby.

Even some of the more widely available techniques can still have obstacles. Fertility-related treatments can be prohibitively expensive, and options like egg freezing, for example, don’t always lead to pregnancy. “We don’t have guarantees,” said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, a clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology & reproductive sciences at Yale University. “It’s still a new process.”

Yet despite the issues, having a choice still feels better for many women than having no option at all. “The ability to freeze eggs or embryos to give you a little more time, I think, is empowering,” said Jennifer Tye, vice president and head of U.S. Operations at the fertility tracking company, Glow.

The limitations of current technologies can be frustrating, but experts are hopeful for the future. As for right now, Minkin points out that there’s plenty that women can do to improve their fertility profile: maintain a healthy weight, don’t smoke and find out what age women in your family typically go through menopause.

This article originally appeared in Time.com