iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Allana Maiden wanted her mother to feel beautiful again after she’d undergone a radical mastectomy. But Victoria’s Secret, the company she hoped would design sexy lingerie for women who’ve had breast cancer surgery, has rejected her appeal for a “survivor line” of bras.

The Richmond, Va., 28-year-old was 6 years old when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had her surgery. But she was always aware of her mother’s struggle to feel good about herself -- and to find a bra that not only fit but was reasonably priced.

Maiden was particularly disappointed in Victoria’s Secret’s decision after actress Angelina Jolie announced that she’d had a preventive mastectomy after learning she had the BRCA gene, which predisposes a woman to breast cancer.

“She put the news out there that you can still be attractive after having breast cancer and mastectomy,” Maiden said of Jolie. “But a beautiful bra would have been a great thing to have, and now these bras are very limited."

“My mom and I have always said how much we appreciate Victoria’s Secret research efforts,” said Maiden, who works at an animal shelter. “But cancer research doesn’t help survivors feel beautiful after the battle is over -- mastectomy bras do.  This is a company that prides itself in innovation that helps women feel beautiful. I don’t think cancer survivors like my mom should be the exception to the rule.”

A representative from Victoria’s Secret called Maiden two weeks ago to tell her that the company would not be creating a new line of “survivor” bras.

“Through our research, we have learned that fitting and selling mastectomy bras … in the right way … a way that is beneficial to women is complicated and truly a science,” said Victoria’s Secret Tammy Roberts Myers in a prepared statement Monday.  ”As a result, we believe that the best way for us to make an impact for our customers is to continue funding cancer research."

“I was disappointed, obviously,” Maiden told ABC News. “I understand her decision, that there is a science that goes [with these] bras, and it’s more complicated than a regular bra would be. But I felt that if anyone could do it, they could. They have everything in place.”

According to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and it estimates that more than 1.6 million new cases occurred among women worldwide in 2010.

Maiden’s mother, 57-year-old Debbie Barrett, works in the admissions office at Virginia Highlands Community College. She was 36 when she found a lump during a self-examination and soon learned it was malignant.

Barrett wears a prosthetic because at the time of her mastectomy, insurance did not cover the cost of breast reconstruction. Because she lives in a rural part of Virginia, she has to drive 1½ hours to find a store that sells bras that hold prosthetic breasts.

“It’s a huge ordeal,” her daughter told ABC News earlier this year after she filed a petition on change.org, asking Victoria’s Secret to consider her proposal for a “survivor” line of bras. To date, the petition has garnered 120,000 signatures.

The bras that Barrett wears have little pockets to hold the prosthetic breasts.  They can be bought online, but it’s hard to get a good fit without being measured in person, say both mother and daughter.

Maiden and Barrett met with Victoria’s Secret representatives twice -- once when they delivered petition signatures to the company’s New York office and again when they were flown by the parent company to Columbus, Ohio, to meet with additional team members and cancer researchers.

Victoria’s Secret parent company, Limited Brands, has donated more than $1.6 million to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society to fund breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment. Additionally, in the past two years, it has raised nearly $10 million for cancer research at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, according to the company.

Limited Brands just participated in the local Komen Race for the Cure with the largest team in the world.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Tracy & Kevin Keegan(NEW YORK) -- In the year since the death of 23-year-old activist/writer Marina Keegan in a car crash, her mother said the power of her daughter's words sustain her and continue to inspire others in the art world and beyond.

"My daughter totally inspired me and moved me," Tracy Keegan, 55, of Wayland, Mass., told ABC News. "Her words are how she will live on, and it's really important to me."

Marina had just graduated from Yale University, where her prophetic and inspirational essay, "The Opposite of Loneliness," appeared in a special graduation issue of the campus newspaper.

After her death on May 26, 2012, the celebrated writer's haunting words: "We're so young. We're so young. We're 22 years old. We have so much time" went viral.

Marina and her boyfriend, Michael Gocksch, were driving to the Keegan's summer house in Wellfleet, Mass., when the car hit a guard rail and spun across the road, rolling over twice. He survived, but she died instantly.

"It's been an unbelievably hard journey for all of us and of course, Michael," she said. "I am plodding along -- she would not want us to stop living. But it's unbelievably hard and Mother's Day was tough."

In the months since, Tracy and her husband Kevin Keegan, a cyber threat specialist, and their two sons, 18 and 26, have received hundreds of messages from around the world.

"Her words actually pushed people to make positive changes in their world view -- not only in their head, but their actions," said Keegan. "That to me is her legacy. As her mother, I really feel that my daughter continues her work as long as her words reach people."

And now Marina's sense of optimism and social justice will be memorialized in the national premier of her play, Utility Monster, at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater -- opening on the anniversary weekend of her death.

The play, written while she was a sophomore at Yale, is about two idealistic 15-year-olds who realize that 35,000 children die of hunger each day, and for only the price of a lunch at Taco Bell, two could be saved.

"This is a play that can change lives," said Dan Lombardo, artistic director for the theater, who met Kevin Keegan by accident and learned his daughter was a playwright. He asked to see the script.

"I knew immediately I was reading someone who was extra-gifted," said Lombardo. "I get hundreds of scripts a year from well-known playwrights ...It's rare that a play comes in this brilliant."

The car accident hit the small Cape Cod community "so hard," he said. "It just leaves us utterly bereft, and I cannot imagine what it is like for a parent to lose a child -- and then turn it around in a way that we have something tangible we can do to celebrate her genius."

Utility Monster was written while Marina was at Yale and produced in 2011 by the Yale Dramatic Association (DRAMAT), the first student show in four years.

Throughout her college years, she had been mentored by playwrights Donald Margulies and Deborah Margolin. Writer and critic Harold Bloom considered her an "unofficial granddaughter," according to the family.

Just before her death, Marina had been offered a full-time job on the editorial staff at The New Yorker.

Marina's musical, Independents, also written at Yale, won best overall production at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2012 as well as a New York Times Critics Award.

Additionally, a collection of Marina's writings will be published by Scribner and proceeds will go to creating a foundation for causes aligned with her passion for art and activism, according to Keegan.

Marina's former high school, Buckingham Browne and Nicols, has established a summer fellowship in her name that will inspire students to explore "artistic pursuits or activist causes." And Yale established its first playwright award, the Marina Keegan Award for Excellence in Playwriting.

At both schools, awardees have already been named.

"We did not want an entire school year to go by without having our daughter's spirit continue to breathe through the acts and deeds of others," said Keegan. "This is what helps heal me."

Marina cared about whales (and wrote about it), the legalization of same-sex marriage, the decriminalization of marijuana and helping college-bound undocumented immigrants realize their dreams, according to her parents.

She was active in the Yale Democrats and the Occupy Morgan Stanley campaign.

Her mother said she, too, had been inspired by her daughter, who, like her younger brother Pierce, 18, was born with Celiac disease.

She volunteers with her son's charity, Pierce's Pantry, a gluten-free food bank. Their goal is to partner with national organizations to provide allergy-free foods for disaster relief.

Marina's father, Kevin Keegan, said the year since his daughter's death had been like an "emotional roller coaster."

"Regardless of what your son or daughter has accomplished, it's the same for any parent who loses a child," said Kevin Keegan, 56. "It's just horrible and what I've realized is that it happens every day to somebody."

Keegan said Marina would likely have not liked all the attention on her post mortem successes.

"She is looking down and laughing, 'Have you had enough now, Dad?'" said Keegan. "She never allowed anyone to brag about her accomplishments."

One of the last times he saw his daughter, Keegan told her how proud he was of her. "She said, 'I am going to live for love -- the rest will take care of itself.' That was her philosophy." "More than anything, she was a great daughter and a lot of fun to be with," he said. "She was a comet who shone very brightly, then she was gone."

Utility Monster will open at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre on May 25.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- News reports suggest Colgate-Palmolive applied to patent a caffeinated toothbrush, but the actual patent application only referred to a proposed device that hypothetically could release caffeine or any other substance or flavoring, and create sensations in a user’s mouth.

So maybe they did plan a caffeinated toothbrush; maybe not.

Colgate-Palmolive did not return a request for comment.

In any event, Colgate’s application for an “oral care implement” actually was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, but for reasons that had nothing to do with caffeine.

Caffeine-addicted people and the media were drawn to the story after backlash over other caffeine-laced products.

Earlier this month, Wrigley said it was withdrawing its new caffeinated gum from stores after the Food and Drug Administration said it would investigate into the safety of caffeine-added foods.

In April, Wrigley released Alert gum, a stick of which had an amount of caffeine equivalent to half a cup of coffee.

In Colgate’s application, the company described the technology as “an oral care implement [that] includes a releasable sensory material that invokes a sensory response when in contact with tissues or surfaces of a mouth of a user.”

The company added that “the oral care implement may also include a soft tissue cleaner provided with the sensory material.”

The word “caffeine” was mentioned only once in the company’s application. That sentence read: “Other homeopathic teething or inflammation soothing additive include, but are not limited to Belladonna (atropa belladonna), caffeine and Passiflora Incarnata (Passionflower).”

The application also showed drawings that seemed to depict a toothbrush with various flavors or “sensory materials” such as lemon and mint.

Tracy Durkin, a director at the law firm Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, and a registered patent attorney, said the fuss over what sounded like Colgate’s plans for a toothbrush with caffeine actually appeared to be a material that only included caffeine as a possible element.

“They’re not trying to patent any material or flavoring,” Durkin said. “It’s about Colgate patenting a user experience.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office actually rejected the patent last month after an initial review showing that the combination of two other patents issued to parties other than Colgate had similar elements.

One was a chewable toothbrush and the other was a flossing patent. “There are all sorts of crazy things patented,” Durkin said.

The application was filed in October 2012, and Colgate-Palmolive had three to six months to respond to the initial review.

Durkin said it typically takes three or four years to get a patent issued from the time it is filed.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Jennifer Bathgate, a mother of three boys, is called “Cake-zilla” by her husband.

Bathgate’s elaborate, over-the-top cakes for her sons’ birthdays and celebrations have featured everything from Elmo to Cookie Monster to a soccer ball to a subway train to a Star Wars cake featuring Darth Vader.

While not every mom can create cakes like Bathgate’s, every mom can see photos of them online, along with other moms’ hand-sewn Halloween costumes for their kids or homemade Valentine’s Day treats for all their children’s classmates.

Parents’ ultra-sharing in today’s social media world on sites like Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, just to name a few, is creating another opportunity and, some say, a new struggle for parents, especially moms.

“Definitely, there’s that mom competition,” Leslie Venokur, co-founder of Big City Moms, a support group for new mothers, told ABC News of the handiwork being displayed on mommy blogs and Pinterest boards.

“There’s that, ‘I saw this cake on Pinterest.  I’m going to make it,’” Venokur said.  “And then at the next birthday party, ‘I saw this one.  I’m going to one-up you.’”

The online deluge of photographs and descriptions of such “perfect” moments can be inspiring for some moms, but intimidating for others.

“It can make some women feel like they’re not enough,” one New York City mom said.

“A lot of people do put a lot of pressure on themselves to be this new mom who is kind of a superhero,” another said.

Jenna Andersen, a mother of two in California, grew so frustrated by not being able to recreate the perfect-looking posts she saw on Pinterest that she launched Pinterest Fail, a website where people can post photos of how their do-it-yourself attempts actually turned out.

The website has the tagline, “Where good intentions come to die.”

“We need these areas where we can gather together and say, ‘My life isn’t perfect and neither is yours and I’m perfectly happy with that,’” said Andersen, who also writes the blog That Wife.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Testosterone replacement has long been touted for men who suffer from abnormally low levels of the male sex hormone, but new research from Consumer Reports finds that the benefits of the drugs may not be worth the risk.

"We started to really look, take a closer look at these drugs and we've discovered that there are some very significant risks and the benefits of them really may not be as fantastic perhaps as the ads might lead you to believe," says Lisa Gill, prescription drugs editor at Consumer Reports.

The potential dangers, Gill says, include "breast enlargement, blood clots in the legs, enlarged prostate, sleep apnea, fluid retention in both your ankles and your feet."

"Testosterone may actually speed up the growth of prostate cancers, which is very alarming to us, but really the most alarming risk is an increase risk of heart attack," she adds.

Gill points out that while drugmakers in their ads make it sound like many men have a low testosterone problem, most don't suffer from abnormally low levels of the male sex hormone.

"This condition -- hypo-gonadism -- really only affects less than 10 percent of the male population, probably something closer to about 5 or 6," she says.

If you think you suffer from abnormally low testosterone, Gill advises you make a doctor's appointment because it could indicate something greater.

"Low testosterone can be a sign of actually other conditions, things like heart disease or kidney failure, heart failure, even diabetes, having osteoporosis, problems with your pituitary gland, or even tumors on your pituitary glands," she says.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Photodisc/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Misty Shaffer has struggled with weight all her life.  When her husband was deployed to Afghanistan for a year, the Leland, N.C., woman decided to use his absence to re-commit herself to losing weight so she could surprise him when he came home.

In the year that Army Spc. Larry Shaffer was gone on his second deployment abroad, his wife changed the way she ate.  She switched to whole grains, ate mainly fruits, vegetables and lean meats, drank lots of water and controlled her portion sizes.

She also limited her food intake, going from eating about 2,000 calories a day to now eating about 1,200 calories.

Misty, who wore a size 20 then, watched the pounds melt away.  At her heaviest, she weighed 315 pounds, but she tipped the scales at 250 pounds when she started counting her calories in June.  When her husband came home last Wednesday, she weighed 154 pounds.

She now wears sizes 7 through 9, she said.

“In the beginning, the first couple of months (were) hard because I guess, people telling me the cleansing of the body because you’re still wanting that sugar, you’re still craving that stuff, and now it’s a lot easier,” the 24-year-old mother told ABC News.  “Whenever I go grocery shopping it’s like, I crave the healthy stuff over the non-healthy stuff.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do have a piece of cake here and there or whatever, but it’s just the size of it and how often I do it.”

Misty, who works as a personal grocery shopper, said she didn’t do any exercise beyond going to work and taking care of her 3-year-old daughter, Nevaeh.

When Larry got off the plane on Wednesday, he was stunned by his wife’s weight loss.  She had been standing behind a crowd of friends and family who had gathered to welcome him home, and when the crowd parted, Larry got his first look at his newly slender wife.

“All he did was ‘wow,’” Misty recalled, adding: “All he can tell me is he so proud of me and he loved me before, no matter what...he’s always seen me as beautiful.  But he said whatever makes me happy makes him happy.”

In the year that the Shaffers were apart, they would Skype and Misty would send her husband pictures of their daughter and of herself -- but she made sure that her images only showed her from the neck up.  Her friends and family helped keep the secret, too.

“When they took pictures they would either edit them to where it was just shoulder up or didn’t post them or either they blocked him to where he couldn’t see it,” she said.

Misty said she’s happy with her success. “I’m still like really conscious about my body but with clothes on and stuff I feel like I look good,” she said.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The mother of two children allegedly killed by their nanny last fall is pregnant again, and their story might provide an example for other bereft parents that life can still go on, according to experts.

Last October, Marina Krim came home after a swimming lesson with her 3-year-old daughter, Nessie, to find the bodies of her 2-year-old son, Leo, and her 6-year-old daughter, Lulu, in a bathtub.  Their nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, was charged with their murder.

On Thursday, Krim and her husband, Kevin Krim, announced they were expecting a baby.

In a post on the Facebook page for the Lulu and Leo Fund, an arts education fund created in honor of their children, the couple wrote they were "filled with many emotions as we look to the future, but the most important one is hope."

For parents who have experienced such a traumatic loss, experts say, a pregnancy can help with the grieving process even as it brings up other emotions.

"They still have a family [they] get to love and cherish and enjoy," said Dr. Marlene Maron, chief psychologist for Fletcher Allen Medical Center in Burlington, Vt.  "They are more appreciative than most of us who can whine and complain about the annoying things the people we love do. …You really become very grateful for every good day."

While the Krims have not given interviews, they've used Facebook to write about memories of their children and how they've dealt with their grief.

On Mother's Day, Marina Krim wrote about putting up sand dollars she had collected with her children on an earlier vacation.

"We lovingly collected over 100 sand dollars along Playa Coco during that trip," she wrote.  "Lulu was a particularly good and dedicated shell hunter. ... Mounting [the shells] on the wall this morning was therapeutic for me and a perfect way to connect with my angels this Mother's Day."

Maron said that the couple's decision to write about their grief on a social network site can help them through their traumatic loss by allowing online commentators to offer words of support or share their own stories, as well.

"That honors the memory of the child, but also helps you with their healing," said Maron.  "[When] other people are writing, then there's the shared collective experience."

While Maron said writing about loss can be helpful for some couples, she cautioned that everyone grieves differently and, even if parents decide to have another baby, it does not mean they will ever "get over" a child's death.

"There's no such thing as getting over the loss of a child.  There's no such thing as moving on or having closure," said Maron.  "[But even knowing] what could happen, you will have new joys."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto(OXFORD, England) -- Bad at math? A new study by researchers at Oxford University suggests that applying high-frequency electrical noise to the brain can make you better at math for up to six months following treatment.

According to BBC News, 51 Oxford students participated in the small study appearing in Current Biology. Over a five-day period the students had to complete two arithmetic problems each day. Half were given transcranial random noise stimulation, or TRNS.

Six months later, the group that had received the TRNS preformed much better when asked to solve math problems than the control group.

Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh, study author from the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, explained that the results “suggested that TRNS increases the efficiency with which stimulated brain areas use their supplies of oxygen and nutrients."

Dr Michael Proulx, senior lecturer in psychology at Bath University, told BBC News that using TRNS this was could have "real, applied impact," and could help those with learning disabilities or who are suffering from a stroke or other neurodegenerative illness.

Experts stress, however, that more testing is required before the practice becomes widespread, so don’t expect to hear math teachers telling students to put away their TRNS machines before tests anytime soon.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Many people suffer from depression as a complication after suffering a stroke, however, a new study shows that depression may be a risk factor for future strokes.

Researchers studied women born between 1946 and 1961, surveying the participants every three years between 1988 and 2010. Women were asked to self-report their depression, medication use and diagnosis or treatment. They also self-reported any stroke they may have suffered. Additionally, stroke deaths were identified using a national database.

Over 10,000 women participated in the survey, the results of which were published in the journal Stroke.

The data determined that women who were depressed were more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke than those who were not depressed.

The researchers believe that improvement in the diagnosis and treatment of depression could play a role in limiting stroke risk later in life.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Over the past ten years, the rate of mental health disorders in American children has been rising, according to a new study.

Between 13 and 20 percent of children have experienced a mental disorder, says the study, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Those figures were based on surveillance data from a number of federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control, gathered between 1994 and 2011.

The data from 2010 showed that the second leading cause of death among children between the ages of 12 and 17 was suicide. Additionally, mood disorders were the most frequent diagnosis for hospitalized children in the United States.

Among the most prevalent mental disorders in American children were ADHD, behavioral or conduct problems, anxiety and depression.

The CDC concluded that comprehensive surveillance is needed to prevent mental disorders and promote mental health for children.

Statistics from 2010 showed that children were hospitalized for mental disorders at a rate of 17 hospital stays per 10,000 population, up 80 percent from 1997.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Photodisc/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Seventy two hours after Elissa Bantug's mastectomy, she felt broken. She was only 25 years old, but she had lost both breasts and her strawberry blonde hair to cancer. Drainage tubes still hung from her chest to remove excess fluid from the operation.

In that moment, she just wanted to have sex with her boyfriend.

"I just needed something to make me not feel so broken," said Bantug, who is now 31. "Anything to make me feel beautiful."

But instead of responding to her advances, Bantug said, her boyfriend pushed her off of him and told her it was crazy for her to have sex when she was so sick -- and so obviously in pain.

"It was awful," said Bantug. "It ended in a screaming match with doors being slammed."

Bantug said it was just one of the instances in which she and her boyfriend -- to whom she is now married -- didn't communicate well during her cancer experience. He had a hard time figuring out when he was supposed to let Bantug make decisions and when he was supposed to help her decide what to do. He didn't tell her how afraid he was.

When they did have sex, Bantug's boyfriend didn't know where to put his hands or whether putting them certain places would draw attention to Bantug's scars and upset her. He thought he should sleep in the guest room because he thought she needed the space to heal, but that made her worry that he was pulling away.

Now, Bantug knows better than to stay silent about these things, and it's her job to make sure cancer patients at Johns Hopkins Medical Center do, too. She runs the hospital's Breast Cancer Survivorship Program, where it's her job to answer the questions cancer patients and their spouses feel silly asking their oncologists.

Couples want to know about what to eat and how to tell their children about the diagnosis, but they also want to know about nipple sensitivity, body image and whether cancer patients will be able to have an orgasm again, she said.

Even though breast cancer is primarily about the woman fighting it, psychologist Jennifer Wolkin said conversations about relationships inevitably come up in her sessions with patients.

In addition to finding themselves thrust into the unfamiliar role of emotional supporter, men feel they need to deny their own feelings to be stoic, said Wolkin.

"They give off an air of self-assuredness to protect women, but, ironically, it comes off as rejection," said Wolkin, who works at the Joan H. Tisch Center for Women's Health at NYU Langone.

She said men often lack support centers and have to journey through cancer alone. If they show their feelings, they worry it somehow makes them weak. Sometimes, a man's libido can even drop -- not so much because he's no longer attracted to his wife, but because of the uncertainty associated with the situation and her body.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Men and women just need to communicate and ask for help when they need it.

"Mastectomy is horrific, but I think it has potential to offer this place where a man and woman could really significantly grow in their relationship," Wolkin said.

It's important for both partners to be as informed as possible about what's going to happen during breast cancer treatment and recovery, said Lynn Erdman, the vice president of community health for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Erdman, a nurse who specializes in oncology, said men have their own set of concerns and emotional issues when it comes to having a spouse with breast cancer, but they often don't feel comfortable talking about them because they think it makes them selfish. She said many hospitals now offer support groups for men as a safe place for them to ask questions that would otherwise seem taboo.

"What we hear a lot of times is, 'What's the breast going to feel like after the implant is in and the tissue in it has been removed?'" Erdman said. "'If I hug her, is it going to hurt her?' 'Will it change our sex life?'"

"I've seen it often bring couples much closer together," she said."It's part of going through the cancer battle together."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Mini-movies of growing embryos could help boost the success of in vitro fertilization, a new study found. But the number of women who could benefit from the time-lapse technology is unclear.

For the study, British researchers used time-lapse photography to track the earliest stage of embryonic development – a process that unfolds in womb-mimicking incubators for couples using IVF. The researchers then used an algorithm to spot the embryos most likely to grow into babies.

"Embryo selection based predominantly on specific time-lapse derived algorithms could rapidly become routine in IVF treatment," the study authors wrote in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online, describing how the healthiest-looking embryos had a 72.7 percent chance of leading to a pregnancy and a 61.1 percent chance of resulting in a live birth.

Embryos deemed to look less healthy by the time-lapse technique had a 25.5 percent chance of leading to a pregnancy and 19.2 percent of resulting in a live birth, according to the study.

But the study was small, with only 69 couples, and some experts say many women lack the luxury of choice when it comes to embryo implantation.

"A lot of the time, we don't have that many embryos to choose from," said Dr. James Goldfarb, director of the University Hospitals Fertility Center in Cleveland and past president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, who was not involved in the study.

An IVF cycle starts with a woman taking drugs to stimulate the production of multiple eggs. After about two weeks, the eggs are collected and fertilized. Then, the resulting embryos are grown in a lab for up to five days, depending on how many there are and how healthy they look.

The more healthy embryos there are, the more likely an embryologist will watch them for five days to let the weakest die off, leaving the strongest behind. The pregnancy rate for women under 35 with day 5 embryo transfers is 69 percent, compared to 57 percent for women with day 3 transfers, according to data from the Cleveland Clinic's IVF Laboratory.

"For some patients, you might get 15 eggs, and maybe 13 will fertilize and you have enough embryos that look good on day 3 to go out to day 5 without a problem," said Goldfarb. "But at the other end of spectrum, you might have a patient with only six or seven eggs, only three or four get fertilized, and by day 3, you only have two that look reasonable."

In that case, Goldfarb added, "it's better to transfer them on day 3."

The number of embryos transferred depends on the woman's age. But for women 35 and under, it's typically one or two, according to Goldfarb. So if only one or two embryos are thriving on implantation day, there's not much of a choice.

But the new study raises an interesting possibility for women with multiple embryos to choose from. Based on time-lapse imaging, the researchers were able to weed out embryos with an abnormal number of chromosomes – embryos that would likely fail to implant in the womb or result in a miscarriage. None of the embryos deemed the least healthy by the time-lapse technique resulted in a pregnancy or a live birth, according to the study.

"In some ways, it's more of a negative to get pregnant and miscarry," said Goldfarb. "That rollercoaster can be much more traumatic than not getting pregnant at all."

But the study does not break down the couples' ages and explain how that might have impacted their IVF success rate, noting only that they ranged in age from 25 to 47 with an average age of 36. Nor does it detail how long the embryos were observed in culture before being transferred into the womb, instead indicating that they were "cultured until 5 or 6 days" after fertilization. And while the study does suggest that technology can help in the embryo selection process, experts say the decision to undergo IVF and the odds of being successful vary from couple to couple.

"Obviously, the goal is to pick out the best embryos, and this study is certainly not the first to look at this technique," said Goldfarb, explaining how similar studies have found mixed results. "It's something still in play, and we'll how this sorts out in long run."

"But I think the one thing patients want to hear is your best assessment of their individual chance of getting pregnant," he added. "And you can get a pretty good estimate of that based on their age and some other characteristics."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- With tiger moms, helicopter parents, and permissive and authoritarian models, parenting styles differ as much in the United States as they do in any country.

But can American parents learn something from their counterparts in different parts of the world?

The answer is yes, according to Christine Gross-Loh, author of the recently published book Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us. The Harvard-educated mother of four traveled to and researched parenting styles in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Japan, China, Italy and other countries.

American parents may not think they need any lessons. According to a study released in March by the Pew Research Center, moms and dads in the U.S. gave themselves good marks for how they raised their children. Almost 70 percent of parents with children under 18 said they have done a very good job or better. Only six percent rated themselves poorly.

In other parts of the world, American parenting styles stand out. When Gross-Loh and her husband were raising their four children in Japan, she noticed something unusual when they were playing in the park.
“I was the only parent following my children around the park and preventing disputes,” she said in an interview with ABC's Christiane Amanpour.

Japanese parents allowed their children to get into scrapes, she said, and felt that disagreements were character-building.

“Even though we in America prize independence and autonomy and freedom so much, children in Japan were being raised with a lot more of these qualities,” said Gross-Loh.

Without a doubt, good parenting means being involved in children’s lives. But Gross-Loh’s research led her to conclude that being over-involved is detrimental and undermining.

“We like children who can speak their own minds and give their own opinions and be their own person,” she said. “This is a part of being independent. But there’s a whole other part that I think we’ve been neglecting and that’s the idea of self-reliance and self-responsibility. Those are the sorts of ideas that I see being fostered in other countries that are not being fostered as well by many parents in the U.S. It’s not our fault. We’ve been told that it’s good to look out for our children and help them out.”

One facet in developing independent children seemed counterintuitive: co-sleeping. Gross-Loh pointed to a survey showing that out of 100 countries, the U.S. was the only one in which parents provided a separate sleeping place for their children. In other countries, when little children sleep in the same bed, the same room or nearby the parents, their levels of dependence better matched during day and night.

“The idea is that when you allow children to be dependent in this way when they are babies, then they can more easily move into age-appropriate independence as they get older,” said Gross-Loh. “And research does show that even American children who were co-sleeping with their parents were more independent in different ways."

“Parents who have this 24-hour relationship with their kids, in Japan, for example, were not as reluctant to ask more of their children during the daytime,” Gross-Loh added. “They could carry their own bags, walk to school on their own, do chores around the house. In the U.S., we have this tendency to think there are things they can’t handle during the day, but we ask them to do something different at night.”

Another aspect of self-reliance and independence is safety. But Gross-Loh argued that allowing children to take some risks is actually the best sort of protection to give them, something she saw in Japan and certain European countries.

“That is how they will form the judgments to deal with all sorts of situations,” she said.
Gross-Loh recounted visiting a kindergarten in the German forest and coming across a 5-year-old child whittling on a stick with a knife.

“He had been taught how to do it safely,” she said. “Meanwhile, a lot of children in the U.S. are not even allowed to pick up a stick at the school playground because it might hurt someone.”

Through raising her children abroad and her research, Gross-Loh said she has learned her own lessons for her family.

“For me, I learned that I could be more relaxed about parenting because there’s so many ways to be a good parent,” she said. “And a lot of them involve a lot less involvement than we believe we should be doing.”

But what about lessons that American parents can teach the rest of the world?

“One of the things that was really striking is that we strive to raise tolerant children,” said Gross-Loh. “In a way, it’s necessitated because we live in such a diverse society. But it’s the sort of thing I didn’t see in other cultures.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- How much sleep you get might be at least partially determined by the color of your bedroom.

According to a recent survey, bedrooms decorated with more calm colors, like blue, yellow and green, often offer more sleep than those adorned with more stimulating colors. According to the U.K.'s Daily Mail, the survey showed that people whose bedrooms are blue get the most sleep, nearly eight hours on average. Comparatively, those with purple bedrooms get an average of under six hours of sleep.

Yellow, green, silver and orange bedrooms also offered more than seven hours sleep, which contributes to how a person might feel during the day.

According to the Daily Mail, the data relates to the way the human eye reacts to specific colors. Certain cells in the retina feed information the brain controlling body rhythms. Those cells happen to be most sensitive to the color blue.

Alternatively, purple is considered a stimulating color that drives creativity. With the color of their bedroom prompting the mind to keep working, even at night, people can be depriving themselves of important sleep.

Bedroom decoration can also affect people beyond sleeping patterns, says the Daily Mail. Couples who sleep in a caramel colored have sex three times per week on average, while those in red-colored bedrooms were intimate just once each week.

Similarly, couples with grey bedrooms spend the most time online shopping in bed, while silver bedrooms were often linked with more frequent exercise.

"Room color does influence your mood and set the tone for your living environment," Frances Whitley, in-house interior designer for Travelodge, told the Daily Mail.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Beyond Meat(NEW YORK) -- Fake meat isn’t a new thing, but good fake meat that is almost indistinguishable from real meat could be very big in cleaning up your diet and helping the planet.

Beyond Meat, a Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based food company that specializes in making “chicken” from plant-based protein, claims it is 80 percent of the way toward making real-tasting fake chicken. And you can find out for yourself as their products are now in Whole Foods markets and the Tropical Smoothie restaurants in New York City, where you can substitute its fake chicken for real chicken in burritos.

“What we offer the market is the cleanest form of protein that money can buy,” says Ethan Brown, Beyond Meat’s founder and CEO. “You don’t have any concerns about antibiotics, avian flu, mad cow disease. You have no hormones or steroid use.”

Brown noted that meat consumption has been linked to cancer and heart disease, and that it takes a toll on the environment, too.

“If you look at climate, 51 percent of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to meat consumption,” he said.

Brown, who is vegan, looked far and wide for the technology his company uses in its fake meat products. He finally stumbled upon two researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia who had been working for 10 years on a system that heats, cools and pressurizes protein from plants so that it mimics the fibrous structure of meat.

“Now we’re not all the way there,” Brown says, “but I would challenge you in a tortilla or an enchilada to tell me which is chicken and which is not.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio