Could an Experimental Treatment Restore Fertility in Early Menopause?

After reading through a new study that could just possibly help boost fertility after menopause, we have many questions. The most important: Should we file this under "G," for Getting Hopes Up Unnecessarily? Menopause has always been the final curtain on our reproductive lives, and the idea that science could possibly poke some holes in that barrier seems almost too good to be true.

The most surprising finding in this work is awakening the sleeping beauty, restoration of ovulatory function after menopause.

For the study, which was published in the journal Menopause, 12 women around the age of 45 in early stages of menopause, were given injections of platelet-rich plasma and hormones, called gonadotropins, in their ovaries. Eleven of them began menstruating again; six underwent egg retrieval followed by a procedure where the selected sperm is directly injected into the egg. One woman became pregnant.