Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli

• PhD
• University of Haifa

Background The preservation of human ova for future fertilization has been made available to healthy women in 2011–2012. This treatment, dubbed elective egg freezing (EEF), is undertaken primarily by highly educated unpartnered women without children, concerned of age-related fertility decline. In Israel, treatment is available to women aged 30–41....

Through examining cases of cross-border surrogacy in Israel and the United States, we offer the concept of genetic kinning defined as the narratives deployed by individuals that give prominence to genetic relatedness between offspring and parents to highlight immutable similarities between parents, and by extension, grandparents and ancestors. The...

Through examining cases of cross-border surrogacy in Israel and the United States, we offer the concept of genetic kinning defined as the narratives deployed by individuals that give prominence to genetic relatedness between offspring and parents to highlight immutable similarities between parents, and by extension, grandparents and ancestors. The...

The advent of vitrification has been a game changer in the world of oocyte cryopreservation, simplifying laboratory procedures and making the egg freezing process more efficient. As a result, an increasing number of women worldwide are turning to elective egg freezing (EEF) as a form of fertility preservation. Among the potential reasons for EEF, t...

With a fertility rate twice higher than the OECD average, Israel is a world outlier in terms of fertility. This article puts together a composite portrait of this exceptional reproductive landscape. Within a comparative framework, it offers context-specific illustrations showing that considered vis-à-vis women in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and J...

Background Israel’s containment of the first wave of Covid-19 was relatively successful. Soon afterwards, however, in the summer months, a harsher pandemic wave developed, resulting in many more seriously ill and dead Israelis. Israel was the world’s first country to impose a second general lockdown. The present study outlines the early months of I...

In the last two decades, medical and elective egg freezing (MEF and EEF) have gained worldwide acceptance as a method to preserve future fertility.The medical indications for egg freezing have steadily been widened to include not only cancer patients facing gonadotoxic treatments but also patients affected by autoimmune disorders, severe endometrio...

Purpose: To assess the effect of 1 week of consuming a placebo "energy drink" compared with a week of drinking regular water on daily physical activity in obese children participating in a weight reduction multidisciplinary program. Methods: Seventeen prepubertal (age = 128.7 [26.6] m) overweight and obese children (7 females and 10 males) parti...

Oocyte cryopreservation (i.e., egg freezing) is one of the newest forms of assisted reproduction and is increasingly being used primarily by two groups of women: (1) young cancer patients at risk of losing their fertility through cytotoxic chemotherapy (i.e., medical egg freezing); and (2) single professionals in their late 30s who are facing age‐r...

The newest innovation in assisted reproduction is oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing, which has been developed as a method of fertility preservation. Studies emerging from around the world show that highly educated professional women are turning to egg freezing in their late thirties to early forties, because they are stil...

Background: The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit Israel in late February 2020. The present study examines patterns of the first wave of Covid-19 morbidity in Israel at the macro level, during the period of late February to early June 2020, when the first wave has faded out. The analysis focuses on the significance of four sociodemographic v...

Transgender people assigned female at birth may undergo fertility preservation by egg or embryo freezing, usually prior to gender affirming treatment. In this binational ethnographic study, four transgender men were included as part of a larger comparative project on fertility preservation. In-depth ethnographic interviews allowed informants to tal...

PurposeTo examine the impact of lactation on the recurrence rate of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).Methods Retrospective cohort study performed in a single teaching hospital on data between 2009 and 2016. The study group consisted of women who had a diagnosis of GDM and breastfed exclusively for ≥ 1 month. The control group consisted of women...

In this article, we elucidate how elective egg freezing (EEF) has been received within the three Abrahamic traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and how these religion-specific standpoints have affected the EEF experiences of women who self-identify as religiously observant. Through an analysis of religious women's narratives, the study explo...

How do men participate in women’s fertility preservation decisions and procedures? This binational, qualitative study assessed whether men play supportive roles either before, during or after women’s elective egg freezing (EEF) cycles. From June 2014 to August 2016, 150 women (114 in the USA and 36 in Israel) who had completed at least one cycle of...

Background: The aim of the study was to examine the placebo effect on fitness test results in trained and untrained overweight and obese children. Methods: Twenty pre-pubertal overweight children performed two pairs of progressive treadmill exercise tests before and 12 weeks into a multidisciplinary program for the treatment of childhood obesity...

Purpose Gestational surrogacy (GS) has been researched in multiple qualitative studies. In contrast, quantitative aspects of the practice are conspicuously understudied. The present article assesses and compares the incidence of GS in the USA and Israel, two industrialized countries that have maintained active commercial surrogacy practice, for ove...

Same-sex families are distinct: at least one parent is not genetically related to each child and external state regulation of coupling and separation processes is scarce. The disassembling of such families therefore offers a singular setting to explore nontraditional perceptions and enactments of family and kinship. Tracing separation processes and...

Aim: The aim of the study was to examine the effect of information placebo on fitness test results in normal weight, overweight and obese children. Methods: Twenty-four pre-pubertal children with overweight or obesity and 24, age and maturity-matched normal weight children performed a progressive treadmill exercise test twice. Different types of...

The two components of hope (i.e., hope‐agency defined as the ability to envision and believe in one's ability to achieve goals; hope‐pathway defined as belief in one's ability to devise strategies to achieve one's goals) propel adolescents toward well‐being, academic achievement and personal fulfillment. This study compares levels of hope and its c...

Purpose How can elective egg freezing (EEF) be made patient centered? This study asked women to reflect on their experiences of EEF, which included their insights and recommendations on the optimal delivery of patient-centered care. Methods In this binational, qualitative study, 150 women (114 in the USA, 36 in Israel) who had completed at least o...

Background The aim of the study was to examine the influence of the placebo effect on the endurance capacity results in normal weight children. Methods Twenty-four pre-pubertal normal-weight children aged 6–13 years participated in the study. Subjects underwent anthropometric measurements (weight, height, BMI percentile, and fat percentage), a pro...

Purpose: What are the specific pathways that lead women to freeze their eggs? In this binational study, women were asked directly about the life circumstances that led them on the path to elective egg freezing (EEF). Methods: From June 2014 to August 2016, 150 women (114 in the USA, 36 in Israel) who had completed at least 1 cycle of EEF were in...

In 1978 in vitro fertilization (IVF) was introduced in England to overcome the problem of infertility. In the nearly four decades since then, many other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have been developed. Some are simple variants of IVF, while others are complex innovations, involving related fields such as human genetics. As ARTs have e...

Background: What are the underlying socio-demographic factors that lead healthy women to preserve their fertility through elective egg freezing (EEF)? Many recent reviews suggest that women are intentionally postponing fertility through EEF to pursue careers and achieve reproductive autonomy. However, emerging empirical evidence suggests that wome...

Conclusion: Findings suggest a social gradient in which positive healthcare experiences were more common among adolescence with higher socioeconomic status for some immigrants (Russian adolescents) but not for others. The two leading health indicators were related to healthcare experiences, but as adolescent smokers were less likely to have positi...

Medical egg freezing (MEF) is being recommended increasingly for women at risk of losing their reproductive ability due to cancer chemotherapy or other fertility-threatening medical conditions. This first, binational, ethnographic study of women who had undergone MEF sought to explore women's experiences under two different funding systems: (i) the...

Purpose: This binational qualitative study of medical egg freezing (MEF) examined women's motivations and experiences, including their perceived needs for patient-centered care in the midst of fertility- and life-threatening diagnoses. Methods: Forty-five women who had undertaken MEF were interviewed in the USA (33 women) and in Israel (12 women...

Egg freezing (i.e., oocyte cryopreservation) is a new reproductive technology that allows women's eggs to be frozen and stored for future use. Over the past five years, so-called "medical egg freezing" (MEF) has begun to play a major role as a form of fertility preservation for young women with cancer and other fertility-threatening medical conditi...

Purpose: The increasing rates of early-onset breast cancer (BC) and of woman survival render fertility preservation (FP) a pressing issue. We probe women's experiences of FP counseling and decision making, aiming to identify emergent counseling patterns. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 women, who had been diagnosed wit...

This article compares the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and resultant kinship formations in four Middle Eastern settings: the Sunni Muslim Arab world, the Sunni Muslim but officially 'secular' country of Turkey, Shia Muslim Iran and Jewish Israel. This four-way comparison reveals considerable similarities, as well as stark differenc...

To describe factors associated with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) decisions among Jewish Israeli BRCA1/2 carriers or spouses of a male carrier, we contacted all women who initiated PGD consultation for embryonic BRCA1/2 mutation detection at Sheba Medical Center, prior to March 2014. Applying a qualitative approach, we asked women to elab...

Background: Although studies have described the 'healthy immigrant effect' in adults, far fewer have examined the 'healthy immigrant effect' for adolescents living in immigrant families. Those few studies that did, noted conflicting results, and also differed on whether gender confounds the results. Methods: This cross-sectional study was inform...

Israel is known as a pronatalist country. Whether due to the Biblical commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ or the traumas of the Holocaust and perennial wars, reproduction is a central life goal for most Israelis. Israeli women bear substantially more children than their counterparts in industrialized countries and view child-rearing as a key...

Background: This study examines the nature of disparities in cardiovascular risk by exploring chronic stressors and other cardiovascular risk factors on youth of African descent who are integrating into an industrialized society. Methods: Qualitative data on cardiovascular risk and acclimation to the dominant society were collected from three gr...

The power of health news as a vehicle in the production of meaning in the service of power is the core of this article. Tracking the media coverage of a medical service, it shows how a routine practice can be invoked at a time of armed conflict so as to enhance a benevolent state image. The case at hand is the medical treatment of Gaza children in...

Résumé Le secret et l’anonymat du don de sperme sont très forts en Israël. Ce mode est préféré par les couples inféconds et semble faciliter leur adaptation à la parentalité à long terme. Dans les communautés religieuses juives orthodoxes, ce don est, tout au plus, toléré à la condition paradoxale que le donneur soit d’ascendance non juive pour évi...

Israel's reproductive policy stands out in the discrepancy it creates between genetic and non-genetic modes of kinship. Whereas fertility treatments receive almost unrestricted state funding, adoption entails severe applicant screening and long years of waiting, or else, if conducted abroad, high private expenditure and intricate bureaucracy. In th...

Le secret et l’anonymat du don de sperme sont très forts en Israël. Ce mode est préféré par les couples inféconds et semble faciliter leur adaptation à la parentalité à long terme. Dans les communautés religieuses juives orthodoxes, ce don est, tout au plus, toléré à la condition paradoxale que le donneur soit d’ascendance non juive pour éviter un...

The state of Israel funds unlimited fertility treatment to any of its female citizens. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, whose area has been annexed to Israel after its occupation in the 1967 War, are also entitled to these services. Whereas this occupied population indeed benefits from the state funded treatment, East Jerusalem women face p...

Male infertility is a neglected reproductive health problem, yet it contributes to at least half of all cases of subfertility worldwide (P. Chan 2007; Kim 2001). Male infertility is often idiopathic, or of unknown cause; hence, it is recalcitrant to prevention and is among the most difficult forms of infertility to treat (Carrell et al. 2006; Devro...

Israel is the only country in the world that provides nearly unlimited, universal state funding for fertility treatments. This exceptional policy has been widely understood as symbolising the state's pronatalism. In this paper I probe the policy and assess medical experts' practice to show how a specific modality of pronatalism--enhancing 'the natu...

Male infertility, which contributes to roughly 60–70% of infertility cases in the Middle East, is especially agonizing in this region, where fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood and community standing. In this paper, we compare the infertility experience of two groups of Palestinian men, one living in Israel and the other in Leban...

Male infertility, which contributes to roughly 60–70% of infertility cases in the Middle East, is especially agonizing in this region, where fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood and community standing. In this paper, we compare the infertility experience of two groups of Palestinian men, one living in Israel and the other in Leb...

Following the routinization of assisted reproduction in the industrialized world, technologies such as in vitro fertilization, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and DNA-based paternity testing have traveled globally and are now being offered to couples in numerous non-Western countries. This volume explores the application and impact of these adva...

Ultra-orthodox (haredi) Jews in Israel have an exceptionally high fertility rate of 7.7. As most fathers spend their days studying the Bible, the women struggle to support their large families under severe economic pressures. Some women experience maternal exhaustion coping with this life situation. Contraception for pregnancy spacing raises myriad...

Purpose – Research fields that may imperil one's privacy and dignity present particular methodological challenges to researchers. Gaining a closer look into such fields therefore requires a subtle research design. The present study aims to look at the research of donor insemination (DI) in Israel in order to show the methodological variety required...

In 1978, the world's first "test-tube" baby was born via in vitro fertilization (IVF). The last thirty years have seen the rapid evolution of many other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), some simple variants of IVF, while others bridge the fields of assisted reproduction and human genomics. As ARTs have evolved over time, so have social, c...

Israel offers nearly full funding for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to any Israeli woman irrespective of her marital status or sexual orientation, until she has two children with her current partner. Consequently, Israeli women are the world’s most intensive consumers of IVF. This 2006 study explored the perceptions of Israeli IVF patients about the...

Several options for cancer prevention are available for women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, including prophylactic surgery, chemoprevention and screening. The authors report on preventive practices in women with mutations from 9 countries and examine differences in uptake according to country. Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation were contacted a...

What Makes Women Sick: Maternity, Modesty and Militarism in Israeli Society. Susan Sered. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2000. + 194 pp.

To explore the relationship between the presentation of suffering and support for euthanasia in the British news media. Data was retrieved by searching the British newspaper database LexisNexis from 1996 to 2000. Twenty-nine articles covering three cases of family assisted suicide (FAS) were found. Presentations of suffering were analysed employing...

Though greatly routinized over the past two decades, assisted reproductive technologies still invoke an occasional public debate around a dilemma that is constituted as unprecedented. This paper examines one such case that took place in Israel—that of a legal dispute between estranged partners over the right to have their fertilized eggs implanted...

Motivations for selecting nursing as a career are usually explored through direct questions to candidates and students. The present article aims to uncover ties between the demand structure for the profession and broader socio-demographic and economic processes. Data covering a ten year period was retrieved from an Israeli university. It is suggest...

This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the press coverage of family assisted suicide in Britain during the mid to late 1990s. The newspaper articles we examine focus on court cases in which a family member had been charged with assisting a terminally ill relative to put an end to their lives. The paper aims to typify basic characteristi...

This paper assesses the prevalence of 569 population groups in mutation-related research literature by means of prevalence scores, calculated on the basis of a systematic search of the PubMed database. The main finding is that Mediterranean and Muslim populations are mentioned more often than other groups. The observed overrepresentation is attribu...

This paper explores the shaping of health policy in terms of power relations and group interests, as enacted in Israel's IVF policy. A comparison with the principles of IVF provision in other countries (UK, Canada, USA) shows Israel's policy to be substantially more 'liberal'. In order to explain this exception, the policy is initially located with...

Population-specific human-genetics research has become commonplace but remains controversial, as its results can affect public and personal perceptions of the ethnic, national, and racial groups studied. Choice of populations for study has generally seemed a function of scientific, logistical, or economic factors. Has the identity of populations st...

In this article I examine the ways in which the technology of in vitro fertilization (IVF) is embedded in prevailing sociocultural perceptions and power relations in North American and Western European contexts. From this perspective, I look at the efforts involved in developing reproductive technologies and at the particular direction such attempt...

Israel’s reproductive policy has always aimed at raising fertility rates within the country’s Jewish population. The present paper traces this policy and its implications on various population sectors from the mid-1940s to the present, as situated within a web of political, economic and religious interests. It reviews main changes in reproductive p...

The article explores the demand structure for nursing in Israel by analysing socio-demographic trends within the nursing-student population at one Israeli university. The main findings are that many of the new recruits to academic nursing programmes in the late 1990s came from two somewhat marginal sub-populations: immigrants from the Former Soviet...

Manmade Breast Cancers. Zillah Eisenstein. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. 189 pp.

This paper examines the physiological preferences of Jewish-Israeli donor insemination (DI) recipients regarding the desirable donor. (1) By comparing recipients' own physiognomy with that of a hypothetical donor, we explore some of the social potentials of DI in its emerging democratized form. We examine prevailing notions regarding the 'natural f...

This article explores the relevance of hegemony theory to choices of sperm donors made by Jewish Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI). The context is the objectification of 'the Natural' through hegemonic images of mass consumption. The study, which was conducted in a major Israeli hospital, examined physiological features (height, eye col...

This article explores the relevance of hegemony theory to choices of sperm donors made by Jewish Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI). The context is the objectification of ‘the Natural’ through hegemonic images of mass consumption. The study, which was conducted in a major Israeli hospital, examined physiological features (height, eye col...

This paper addresses the issue of parent involvement in school life in the newly emerging realm of commodified education. It explores the limits of empowerment and its context-dependent nature. The case under scrutiny is that of parent organising in an established Tel Aviv area, who demanded a share in the shaping of their children’s education. The...

Cites collectivism as an element within Israeli culture from its inception. Explores the intricate mosaic of individualism/collectivism as expressed in a middle class Tel-Aviv neighbourhood. Uses a three years of fieldwork and a neighbourhood survey to describe the residents as active individuals, aiming to advance their private interests and eager...

To study the physiognomic preferences of Israeli Jewish recipients of donor insemination. Donors were "scaled" by both their general popularity and their popularity among single women and married recipients. Following this procedure, the donors' physiognomic features were analyzed and interpreted in terms of Israel's sociopolitical system and the i...

Provides a comparison of the press coverage of the introduction of IVF in different contexts, giving a vantage point for examining the variability and the context-dependence of the issue. Sheds some light on the cultural-political-social problems that the new technology entails. Contrasts the differences between Canada and Israel, showing that both...

Patterns of discretion and disclosure of fertility-related information among Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI) are explored. Based on questionnaires completed by recipients in four sperm banks, we studied differences between married women and men. We found that most Israeli recipients conceal the treatment from their friends and relativ...

Patterns of discretion and disclosure of fertility-related information among Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI) are explored. Based on questionnaires completed by recipients in four sperm banks, we studied differences between married women and men. We found that most Israeli recipients conceal the treatment from their friends and relativ...

Donor insemination (DI) in Israel is state regulated. The Ministry of Health dictates a policy of total medicalization and secrecy. In this paper we analyze the state regulations in reference to their historical and cultural contexts. Our main argument is that in Israel, having children and establishing a family are of supreme importance, owing to...

The paper explores the tense dynamics among neighbors in a mixed middle-class neighborhood in Tel Aviv, based on three years of fieldwork (1988-1991) and a local survey. Considered within the context of the general community question, three case studies are presented as illustrations of local relationships, their ambiguities and limitations: relati...

The paper presents a socially mixed neighborhood in Tel Aviv, Israel. Despite its heterogeneity, the neighborhood, which started out with unpretenteous public housing, became a prestigious area and eventually the epitome of success and prosperity. The paper describes the development of the neighborhood and the strategies adopted by the residents of...

This article explores the impact of public events on the development of a Tel Aviv neighborhood. The events were structured as egalitarian: They involved no financial expenditures and avoided ethnic or political issues. Tracing four events, the paper illustrates the gradual crystallization of a local image until it became a resource, sought by both...

This paper explores a socially mixed neighborhood in Tel Aviv considered highly prestigious. It focuses on the marginalization of sociodemographic differences. The ethnography reveals that all segments of the local population (residents of public housing as well as those of luxurious apartments) were equally satisfied and active in the intensive lo...