Male Fertility Declines with Age

It now appears that women are not the only one who have to worry about their biological clock since male fertility declines with age as well, research reveals. Although, there are differences between male and female fertility, experts now advise male population wishing to have biological children, to avoid losing time. ’’Men too cannot afford waiting forever’’ says Dr. Paula Fettback of the Huntingdon Reproductive Medicine Centre in Brazil.

Male Fertility Declines with Age

At the age of 45 chances of a man to father a child drop to 35%.

Dr. Fettback lead a study focused on the outcome of 570 IVF treatments carried out at her clinic. More specifically, fertility outcome was analyzed for 570 men under fertility treatment from March 2008 to April 2011. In order to eliminate female infertility factors, researchers only studied cases of IVF treatment where eggs from young and healthy women were used through egg donation.  They came to result that in couples who had difficulty in conceiving male age was greater than in couples who achieved pregnancy. Actually, for couples where the man was 41 years old chances of conception were about 60%.

‘’Our investigation showed that for each extra year of paternal age pregnancy chances exhibit a decrease of 7%’’, highlighted Dr. Fettback. Furthermore, at the age of 45 chances of a man to father a child drop to 35% and these chances are dropping even faster in older ages, indicating that male fertility declines with age.

The effects of female age on human reproduction are more or less known. As for men, even though there is data suggesting that male fertility declines with age, the effects of male age factor are not fully elaborated, explains Dr. Fettback.

According to experts, attention should be paid to the fact that a growing number of men globally are following the trend of older parenthood. In Germany, for example, the average age of married fathers has increased from 31.3 to 33.1 in about 8 years. In England, fathers aged 35-54 accounted for 25% of overall child births. 10 years later this percentage reached about 40%.

Since more and more men are now choosing to become fathers in advanced age, a better understanding of male age factor as well as men’s sperm quality renders quite critical for public health.

What do you think? What is the ideal age for fathering a child?


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