October is World Menopause Month and 18 October is World Menopause Day.

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Awareness MonthSeptember is  Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Awareness Month and is an excellent time to focus on the latest Cochrane evidence.

Cochrane Overviews bring together the findings from multiple reviews and one of the largest, first published in September 2013, was updated and republished in May 2018. Cindy Farquhar, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand describes this enormous volume of evidence for assisted reproduction.

As well as strategies that are focused mainly on the woman, interventions to help couples to become pregnant include some to directly help men who are subfertile and those targeting men where the couple has unexplained subfertility. One of the Cochrane Reviews with this focus on men looks at giving them oral supplementation with antioxidants, and new evidence was added to this in March 2019. We asked Rebecca Mackenzie‐Proctor from the Auckland City Hospital in New Zealand to bring us to up-to-date. 

ESHRE 2019 is only a few days away. The annual meeting is taking place in Vienna from 23-26 June at the MESSE WIEN Exhibition & Congress Center.  Meet us at Booth F84, Exhibition Hall B.  You can also join us at our group meeting to hear about our work and about latest Cochrane developments: Room Lehar 5 | Tuesday 25 June | 12:45 – 14:00. 

Embryo incubation and assessment is a vital step in assisted reproductive technology (ART). In recent years time-lapse systems (TLS), with or without embryo selection software, have been developed. TLS can take digital images of embryos at frequent time intervals. Suggested TLS advantages include maintaining stable culture environment and improving embryo selection. 

Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility Awarded 2019 Research Excellence Award at  the University of Auckland The 2019 Research Excellence Awards were held at Old Government House at the University of Auckland on Tuesday, 7 May. The theme of the awards was The future world of work: Te ao mahi ā mua.

Searching databases and other sources  Main database searches Our information specialist Marian Showell designs and runs searches for our authors in the major databases (CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO,CINAHL, and AMED) and the Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility Group (CGF) Specialised register.

In women with unexplained subfertility or those seeking advanced fertility treatment such as IVF, it has been suggested that performing a hysteroscopy (visualisation of the inside of the womb, using a telescope) may help improve success.