This month, during National Fertility Awareness Week, you are encouraged to check your chap a bit more thoroughly than usual.
That is because the NHS tells us that around one in seven couples will experience difficulties trying to make babies which is around 3.5million people in the UK alone.
According to the Daily Mail, male factors are reported as being the issue as often as female ones. Not only that, fellas, but they also claim that sperm counts in the average male have fallen by half probably because of nasty chemicals sprayed on crops and such that contain the female hormone, oestrogen. Doctors are also reporting more abnormal sperm in the average load – we aren’t talking about alien sperm here, just misshapen ones that don’t squirm their way into an egg very easily – and people are having babies later in life which affects male fertility levels too.
So, what can your perspective daddies do to make it less likely that you’ll have problems in the baby-making department?
Harvard University have kindly carried out some research and put together some very useful tips about how we can keep our equipment in good working order.
Cut out the naughties like:
- Nicotine – which can damage blood vessels and make blood flow to those vital places difficult.
- Marijuana – decreases the male hormone testosterone which is important in producing sperm.
- Steroids – they make may you look buff but they can act as a male contraceptive because they interfere with the production of essential hormones and normal sperm.
Medication:
Look carefully at the side effects/ingredients of certain medications, even herbal ones, as they can affect your bits and pieces.
Infections:
Sort any infections in that area out as quickly as possible before they can damage anything important.
Avoid:
Try to avoid contact with pesticides, solvent, lead and X-rays – all of these things can do bad things to your reproductive capacity.
You’ll be tempted to laugh at the next one, but it’s true, chaps, honestly. Avoid very hot baths and tight trousers. Your testicles hang outside your body because your body is just that bit too hot to make sperm properly so anything that increases their temperature is bad.
Lose weight
If you are overweight then you are more likely to have problems conceiving. Sorry about that, but it’s a fact. Not only does being overweight clog arteries and create the same potential problems as nicotine, the additional flesh around the testicles heats them and we know how they feel about that!
Unfortunately, not all difficulty conceiving can be solved by following these guidelines so you might want to pop in to your GP if the problems continue.