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Fertility preservation incorporates relational and temporal dynamics that have both experimental and conservative dimensions in people's thinking about their reproductive futures, parenthood, and family building. In this article, we discuss video blog (vlog) narratives of people who have publicly documented their experience of preserving their gametes (eggs or sperm). The aim of the study is to examine how people, who are experiencing the prospect of fertility decline or disruption, frame their decision-making about gamete preservation and what this means for their future family building. As such, we organise the data around three demographic groups according to health, career and relationship status, and gender transition. To analyse the vlogs we use composite narratives, a method whereby researchers synthesise data to construct stories based on people's lived experiences, without attributing events or details to particular people. Using this method, we draw on two conceptual tools from the sociology of personal life; relationality and temporal scripts, to highlight how vloggers discuss fertility preservation in relation to time and their experiences to real and imagined others, in making decisions about their reproductive futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: There is now an extensive body of international research on fertility helpseeking. While this body of work has historically centred the experiences of dominant ethnicities and heterosexual and cisgender couples and families, our study attends to the experiences of individuals and couples from diverse and minority groups in Aotearoa New Zealand, for which, to date, there is little research. In the article, we report delays and disparities accessing assisted reproduction for these groups to advocate for fertility care based on reproductive justice. METHODS: The article draws on semi-structured interviews and talanoa from a qualitative study conducted during 2020 and 2021 with 39 Maori, Pakeha, and Pacific people residing in Aotearoa New Zealand who have experienced fertility issues for social or medical reasons and have sought reproductive assistance, using a range of procedures and treatments, to create families. FINDINGS: To better understand the reproductive journeys of people from these groups we report the challenges identified by study participants in the process of decision-making around accessing assisted reproduction and fertility treatment help-seeking. Importantly, we document a range of situational and structural fertility barriers that point to stratified reproduction relating to affordability, delays and long wait times for resources and services, discrimination, and noninclusive care. CONCLUSION: To address these issues, we recommend improvement to fertility treatment services and delivery that is culturally accessible, responsive, and equitable. This entails attending to the structural constraints that prevent people from accessing and obtaining the resources needed to realise their family building goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment and breastfeeding among first-time mothers in Malaysia remain problematic, due, in part, to the lack of clear policies and policy implementation. This article, based on a phenomenological study utilising dyadic interviews with eight participants and twelve interviews, explores the experience of Malaysian first-time parents managing both breastfeeding and employment. The findings illustrate that although breastfeeding is considered a mother's responsibility and is regarded as the preferred and superior form of infant feeding, there is often no designated time or space for expressing milk, causing many participants to use their lunch or tea breaks for this purpose. While study participants describe themselves as feeling supported by their partners, families, colleagues, and workplace superiors to breastfeed at work, they must nonetheless manage the perceived contradiction between the lactating body and the 'male working body'. For these participants, this entails deftly negotiating the demands of being a good mother with a successful performance of the good worker role. Future research implications include a focus on identifying the roles and possible roles of fathers in infant feeding, and guidelines around monitoring breastfeeding breaks and spaces for mothers at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing need for healthcare professionals to discuss fertility preservation options with trans and non-binary people before commencing medical transition as part of informed consent-based models of care. In this article, we adapt the Five-A framework of healthcare access to examine fertility preservation information and services. To do so, we present an analysis of data from Counting Ourselves, the first comprehensive national survey in Aotearoa New Zealand of trans and non-binary people's health and the first study exploring their access to cryopreservation information and services. Among 419 participants who had received gender-affirming hormones or surgery, 33.7% received information about options for fertility preservation and 15.8% accessed fertility preservation services. Findings from the study indicate the need for greater understanding of trans and non-binary people's desire for genetically related children, and what type of information and form of delivery would be most helpful to ensure equitable outcomes in relation to decision-making around fertility and future family-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists are increasingly attentive to the practical importance of research ethics and professional codes of conduct when undertaking studies with human participants, especially around sensitive topics. In New Zealand, the social and cultural context of research praxis is also shaped by institutional principles that ensure research participants feel safe, respected, and heard when participating in research, and that the knowledge outcomes of the research process will be disseminated and shared with relevant cultural groups. In this article, we present four case studies based on projects that discuss researcher positionality in relation to the ethical and emotional work involved in undertaking research on sensitive topics with individuals from vulnerable and marginal groups. In doing so, we foreground the importance of articulating and managing emotion in research on sensitive topics, and suggest measures to ensure the well-being of researchers engaged in studies of this kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have recently diverged from mainstream bioethical discussion on the topic of the medical use of human biological materials for therapeutic, reproductive and research purposes. Rather than justifying the donation and provision of biological materials solely in terms of alleviating physical, psychological and social suffering, saving or enhancing life, and advancing biomedical knowledge, this work looks beyond humanist bioethics to take a social justice approach to questions of the life sciences. In this article, I draw insight from these accounts to propose an approach to the sociology of live kidney and breastmilk donation that is situated at the interface of the new sociology of morality and affect studies. To do so, I examine the moral economy of tissue provision with respect to its organisation around the discourse of altruism and the gift. I then turn to recent work on tissue economies, which are in the business of creating and producing biovalue, to discuss the manipulation of affect and the entanglement of new forms of bio‐intimacy in the production and reproduction of somatic life. The aim of the article was to contribute to the study of the sociology of donation as a substantive field of specialisation within sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]