New guidance from ESHRE for maintaining safe fertility services during a dramatic spike in COVID-19 case numbers has realigned mitigation steps according to local levels of infection.

It is now ten years since ESHRE embarked on its formal guideline programme. During that time six evidence-based guidelines have been published – the latest in female fertility preservation – and ten good practice recommendations. We talk to research specialist Nathalie Vermeulen about ESHRE’s progress so far.

The largest study to compare the viability of vitrified and fresh sibling oocytes has reaffirmed their comparable efficacy, but only when the efficiency of the vitrification procedure – and oocyte loss at warming - are taken into account.

A review of findings from observational studies and meta-analyses concludes that maternal caffeine consumption is ‘reliably’ associated with several adverse outcomes of pregnancy. Pregnant women advised ‘to avoid caffeine’.

A cohort study in non-IVF couples trying to get pregnant has found that sperm mitochondrial DNA copy number may be useful as a biomarker of male reproductive health and the likelihood of pregnancy, even in the general population.

It was in mid-March this year, in the face of an alarming rise in coronavirus infections and restrictions on travel, that ESHRE cancelled its upcoming Campus meetings. Two weeks later the annual meeting was also cancelled and a week after that, on 2 April, ESHRE’s precautionary statement on fertility services advised that all but essential treatments ‘should not be started’. For ESHRE and the entire fertility sector these were steps never taken before. How did ESHRE cope over the next six months? Could an organisation even as successful as ESHRE continue with its everyday business?

A new report from a high-powered commission formed after gene-edited twins were born in China concludes that the editing technologies must be still be proven safe and effective before countries might approve their use in human embryos.

Irregular and long menstrual cycles in adolescence and adulthood have been associated with a greater risk of premature mortality than regular cycles in a large cohort study. The associations were found strongest for deaths from cardiovascular disease.

Two studies find a sudden increase in the rate of stillbirth and neonatal death, which may, say their authors, be attributed to fewer hospitalisations during periods of lockdown.

Study of more than 600 euploid blastocysts finds mitochondrial DNA content does not correlate with female age and is not predictive of reproductive outcomes.