Roughly 1 percent of moms may be virgins – or so they claim in a new survey.
Virgin birth, or parthenogenesis, typically occurs in non-humans that reproduce asexually, including sharks, Komodo dragons, pit vipers and boa constrictors. The British Medical Journal, which published the study in its latest Christmas issue, points out many retell the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary this time of year.
A team of American researchers wanted to find out the frequency this occurred in humans.
“We examined the incidence of virgin pregnancy and birth based on self report of pregnancy and sexual debut, hypothesizing that individual and contextual factors may influence reporting,” wrote the researchers, led by Amy H. Herring, a biostatiscian at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Indeed, that appeared to be the case for some women. The researchers found 0.8 percent of responders gave birth despite being virgins, without the use of any assisted reproductive technology like IVF.
^That cannot be correct. Parthenogenesis in humans does not produce viable embryos as unfertilised eggs do not have certain necessary instructions about gene expression which must be provided by the sperm cell. In human embryos, certain genes must be “turned on,” so to speak, in one set of chromosomes and “turned off” in the other set in order to produce a viable embryo that will develop normally. The sperm cell is responsible for this and without it the egg cannot complete the final meiosis II as it normally would, and dies. Unfertilised eggs may begin to develop into an embryo but they usually die quite early on or turn into a type of (often benign) tumour.
**Apologies for the rather nerdy language, I’m a former med student
I’d hate to be crass but I think the women interviewed may have a rather different definition of “virginity” than the norm.
Excuse me for the typo. I suppose next time I will copy my medical text word for word. I didn’t realise I was giving a lecture.
What I meant was this:
Once fertilization of the egg takes place, the egg can complete the final stage of meiosis II. During this process, the egg loses half of its genetic material to make room for the sperm’s DNA. However, if thereis no sperm, each half of the divided egg cell will end up short, and both will die. In order parthigensis to produce a viable embryo, “fertilized” egg MUST NOT complete meiosis.
^There is a difference between meiosis I and meosis II. Meosis II is completed only if fertilisation occurs, which results in a fertilised mature ovum. If fertilisation does not occurs, meiosis II does occur, but stops a metaphase II until and if fertilisation occurs.
actually she is right meiosis II doesnt complete until sperm shows up and provides id card and clearance for final steps. tsk tsk icono.. at least i was no med student, whats your excuse?
), this wouldn’t lead to male babies.
meiosis II doesnt complete until sperm shows up and provides id card and clearance for final steps. tsk tsk icono.. at least i was no med student, whats your excuse?