Perhaps it’s a good idea to check your sperm count if you’ve decided to challenge mother nature before having kids.
When it comes to looking into the window of opportunity for trying to conceive, there is a lot of information and discussions about women’s biological time clock. But, is there also a male fertility ticking time bomb? Do men, like women, have a fertility window? We asked Dr. Kenan Omurtag for his input… more
Yes, in fact there is a male biological clock, but it is not as defined or as ‘terminal’ as a woman’s. A man continues to make sperm his entire life, while a woman is born with a fixed number of eggs. As a woman ages, due to hormonal changes that naturally occur, she eventually stops ovulating completely and her fertile days are over. In fact, the transition from fertility to 100% cessation of ovulation can be a lengthy one but even during this process her ability to conceive is impacted. Changes start to occur for a woman ~ the age of 35.
So, what about men? Studies point to the fact that, although there is no ‘manopause’ experienced by males and they don’t wrestle with hormonal heat storms like women, they may have a decrease in sperm production, lower quality sperm (lower motility and poorer sperm morphology/shape), time to stimulation is more prolonged and erectile function seems to decline with age. Signs can start to show after 45 and increase by age 50. It is a fact that as the age of the male increases, their fertility declines
Don’t give up guys…The good news is that I don’t advocate that every male over 50 rush out to seek a 23 year old donor to ‘pinch hit’ for him if he wants to have a baby, but, age is also a male wake-up call for conceiving. And it’s important to introduce the knowledge that we have gained over the last 20 years: Older men, even with younger female partners, may contribute to a longer time to pregnancy than their younger counterparts. This is why an at home testing kit like YO is valuable for men >40 as it is the only home test that I know of that can tell a man about BOTH his concentration and motility and is therefore a very useful tool to gauge where he stands on the ticking time bomb scale.
