When thinking about infertility, many people tend to think that this is primarily a female issue, but many times it is a problem with male infertility.
According to the National Institutes of Health, male infertility accounts for approximately 40% of the more than 2 million infertile couples in the United States.
Of this 40%, about half of these men will experience irreversible infertility and will be unable to father children.
However, in many cases, there is treatment available for male infertility so that normal pregnancy can occur. Sometimes a change in lifestyle habits may be all that is needed to reverse male infertility.
What are some of the most common causes of male infertility?
Some of the most common causes for male infertility are:
- Impaired Sperm Production
- Impaired Sperm Delivery
- Testosterone Deficiency
In some cases, male infertility results from a condition that was present at birth, making it a congenital condition. Alternately, male infertility may develop later on in life, in which case it is an acquired condition.
Here are some causes of male infertility:
- Obstruction and/or a defect in the male reproductive system
- Chemotherapy
- Disease such as Cystic Fibrosis or a sexually transmitted disease, etc.
- Infection
- Hormone imbalance
- Certain medications
- Injury
- Metabolic disorders such as hemochromatosis
- Retrograde ejaculation
- Systemic disease such as kidney disease
- Testicular cancer
- Varicocele
To understand sperm development, it is important to note that it takes place in the ducts of the testes. The mature sperm cells contain one-half of the male’s genetic code.
Sperm development is called spermatogenesis.
Every spermatogenesis cycle has six stages and will take approximately 16 days to complete. It takes about five full cycles to produce one mature sperm.
To reach the female egg in order for fertilization to occur, mitochondria inside each sperm power its tail, or flagellum, so that it will be able to swim to the egg once it reaches the vagina.
Because sperm development takes more than two months, an illness that occurred during the first month may affect sperm and/or sperm production even though the illness is gone when sexual intercourse takes place.
The male reproductive system is quite complicated!
But, more than half of all male infertility can be treated so that pregnancy can take place.
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