After a decade of being paralyzed, Hong Cheng-chin (洪正清) and his wife Hsieh Mei-yun (謝美雲) almost gave up hope of having children.
Last year, however, with the help of reproduction technology offered at National Taiwan University Hospital, the couple -- who are both paralyzed and confined to wheelchairs -- had a baby girl and became the nation's first paralyzed couple to rear a child.
Doctors at the National Taiwan University Hospital employed in vitro fertilization as an alternative to Hong's fertility problems. The major hurdle, doctors said, was collecting sperm from the paraplegia-inflicted husband. The couple is able to have intercourse but Hong is unable to ejaculate.
"Spinal cord injuries in adult males often lead to erectile dysfunction or difficulty ejaculating," said Wang Yen-ho (王顏和), a physician at NTU Hospital.
"Unlike females, who can resume egg production after three or six months after a spinal cord injury, about 76 percent of the males who are paralyzed cannot ejaculate during intercourse," Wang said.
To collect semen from Hong, Wang applied a series of short, low-voltage electric pulses to Hong's pelvic nerves, which induced ejaculation. Using this method, called "electroejaculation," doctors successfully collected 0.4cc of semen.
Then gynecologists injected the extracted sperm to Hsieh's egg and put fertilized embryo to her uterus.
"We performed intracytoplasmic sperm injection to allow the sperm to directly enter the egg," said Chen Shee-uan (陳思原), the gynecologist at NTU Hospital, who helped the couple conceive.
"In the case where sperm has problems penetrating the egg, this method results in fertilization success rates equal to or higher than normal," Chen said.
Over the past decade, 14 couples where the male was paralyzed have used this reproduction technology to increase their chances of conception. Twelve of the 14 couples were successful.
This couple, however, will be the nation's first in which both the male and female are paralyzed were to successfully have a child. Their case will be published in the US medical journal, the Archive of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, according to Chen.
For Hsieh, having a child is a long-awaited dream.
"After the accident, I thought I would never have the chance to fulfill my dream of having a family," she said.
Hsieh became paralyzed when fell from her apartment when she was 24 years old. Even when she met her husband, who also became paralyzed at the age of 24, Hsieh still thought that a wheelchair-bound couple would never experience the bliss of raising children.
Yet after five years of marriage, the Hongs decided to try artificial reproduction at NTU hospital. Now their baby is 11 months old.
"We realized that wheelchair-bound people actually have a lot in common with healthy, normal people. We can still live our lives the way we want," Hong said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS