Women going through IVF because of male fertility problems

[iismum]

I thought this was an interesting article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45419545

It's mostly from the male perspective, but had this quotation from a fertility doctor: This has led to an "absurd" case, says Prof Lewis, where women routinely have to undergo IVF - even if there is nothing wrong with their own fertility.
"The woman actually acts as the therapy for the man's problem [of poor sperm]," she says.
"We are giving an invasive procedure to a person who doesn't need it, in order to treat another person. That doesn't happen in any other branch of medicine."

I'm surprised - having had friends go through this - that the inequality of this never struck me. The focus in treatment ought to be on dealing with the person with the problem, rather than always expecting women to carry the burden of treatment.

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.

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).

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

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...

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?

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