Women going through IVF because of male fertility problems

Sorry for all the women who are dealing with this .
But western male fertility has been plummeting. It must be part ofthe reason for the rise in what we have seen recently politically and the attacks on our rights.
According to scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sperm counts among men in the west have more than halved in the past 40 years and are currently falling by an average of 1.4% a year
www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/29/infertility-crisis-sperm-counts-halved

Interestingly, the BSIR tweeted about this today! Article in The Times which I haven't read yet. At least it's being acknowledged. Wonder if anything will change?

I strongly suspected "my" inability to conceive was due to male factors. Medics wholly uninterested in his lifestyle/nutrition - onus put solely on me.

I cleaned up his diet and lo and behold...

Very interesting. Various research articles have some insight about nutrients and male fertility: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800531/

There is significant financial incentive to investigate and treat male infertility in at least one other species:
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/sport/cigar-to-relax-in-seclusion-to-overcome-infertility-1250828.html%3famp
but it often doesn't work. Cigar never got a single mare in foal. (IVF not an option as Thoroughbreds must be the result of a natural mating to be registered to race).

I'm going through this right now, and it is something I have thought a lot about, and felt angry about. I mainly feel angry that scientific research hasn't focused on sperm count enough to solve it, which ought to be easier than going through IVF.

That said, my OH had no physical examinations or scans, only blood tests and two semen analyses before we were sent into IVF. So I was interested to read in the article that 40% of low sperm count is caused by something that can be fixed by him having an operation! Never heard of that before! If this round of IVF does not work I will ask him to investigate that.

I do feel that if his hormones were the problem he would have been advised to take drugs for that. Also he was advised to change his medication and another SA was done before our IVF started, to see if things had improved. They were still bad enough that ICSI was recommended.

We were also told it might happen naturally but probably would not, and with me being 36 we could choose IVF to just get on with it now. We had been trying for a year.

I don't know what the woman in the article was on about regarding injections not going in first time. Mine were all fine, no significant side effects and I feel I could do this again if it doesn't work.

Interesting. We had unexplained unfertility - both of us checked out fine, then I got pregnant after a couple of months of clomid, so no need for IVF.
I think if women were treated like men in this article, we would be saying medical science was failing or ignoring women.

Ttc unsuccessfully for a year is not 'nothing' thanks

What do you mean?

A year of trying is nothing surely?

iis yes I do agree completely! Far more should be done to investigate and treat MFI

'people with fertility problems' is a bit simplistic tbh. I conceived my first dc naturally on first month of trying. Presumably no fertility problems for either of us. Dc 2 was not conceived naturally despite a year of trying. Male fertility can change, in both directions it appears.

DH and I have been through all the fertility tests and the results were male factor infertility. It did strike me at the time that I was put through all the invasive tests before he had a simple semen analysis done.

The NHS also told us that it was unexplained infertility, IVF the only treatment (not available on the NHS in our area). We had the results reviewed privately - they said it was MFI and we could make lifestyle changes to improve this. There very much did seem to be a default in the NHS that investigate the woman first, the man very much an afterthought.

I do wonder as well if children born from people with fertility problems will have problems themselves.

Very interesting. I hadn’t considered it from this perspective at all and we spent 18 months having fertility treatment and ICSI. The operative word here being “we”. In this situation if it doesn’t work for one of you it doesn’t work for both of you. Totally agree that it’s an uncommon situation in medical care but perhaps a living donor transplant might be similar as a healthy individual is subjected to intervention for an outcome in another.

That is interesting.

I have been through it. What struck me at the time was that there was very little investigation into the cause, next to none on the NHS in fact.

The ‘solution’ was IVF, without even knowing what the problem was. I thought that was odd (whilst at the same time just really wanting to get to the end goal.)

This is similar to my experience. Unfortunately, the growing of a baby needs to happen inside the woman. This biological fact is one of the bases of women's oppression throughout history (and why biological sex really matters btw!) so this is 'just' yet another aspect of that unbalance.

The invasive procedure is really just a by product of the treatment though, the treatment is the physical insertion of the sperm into the egg, which is done in a lab so outside of the man and woman. In order to have a successful pregnancy with any externally fertilised egg the rest of the IVF procedure needs to be followed.

If couples funded their fertility treatments privately most would try cheaper make targeted options first. Obviously, the NHS, as a public ally funded body, should be even more careful with money but it isn't is it? The NHS should either be held to account properly on its spending or be forced to cut nonessential services.

In the vast majority of male factor subfertility there are no treatments that will improve sperm enough to allow natural conception - so women can either go for IVF/IVSI , use donor sperm ( which may still require IVF type medications and procedures , find a new man with a normal sperm count ( not a guarantee of conception ) or remain childless

I didn’t know that. If there are male options hey absolutely should be available on the NHS

I think that’s just because we don’t have solutions to he male infertility. Maybe that’s sexism in research but treatment wise it may be the only option. Having been through IVF for my own problems I do think it’s underestimated for how invasive it is. In some cases women might be better off with a sperm doner but that’s for couples to decide.