Is it really a crisis, or something that has been historically invisible?
I'm sure I've ranted before about my scepticism over those figures about the massive decline in male fertility since [whenever], and when I see woezing over 'in the last 40 years', when I think it was over twenty years ago when I was still finishing up my thesis that I was seeing woezing over 'in the last 50 years' male fertility had plunged -
And on the basis of having been researching medical attitudes to male sexual and reproductive problems at a somewhat more distant period, which had tended to involve closing the eyes and looking away, I was, who, no, WHO, was running around taking sperm samples at that point in time? -
Can we be having cites please and indication of sample size and composition?
And my scepticism only grows when I read this article and find that, okay, individual and anecdotal reports, but still, today, instances in which the woman in the infertile couple has been subjected to extensive and invasive testing before anybody goes, oh yes, and let's take a look at your sperm, here is a container, go into the quiet room next door where you will find some helpful material if you have any difficulty in rising to the business.
This in 2017.
I depose that we cannot possibly know how widespread male infertility/subfertility was in Ye Olden Tymes but I am like to suppose that with one thing and another, including prevalence of STIs, various other diseases (e.g. mumps) affecting fertility, toxic substances and lack of health and safety legislation, it was well higher than we think.
And apart from the 'must be the woman's fault' paradigm From Time Immemorial that's embedded in the 'test her extensively and only then her husband' practice, this charmer suggests that the decline is Mother's Fault: There is a chance that women might ultimately be behind the sudden drop in sperm count, Sharpe believes. His work has looked at the link between rates of maternal smoking and the use of painkillers during pregnancy, and the reduced sperm counts of sons in adulthood. A baby boy’s testes are formed during the first trimester, when many women don’t know they’re pregnant, and the period immediately after their formation is critical for the production of testosterone. What we are seeing now could be the expression of a generational problem: the fact that, since the 1970s, women are more likely than ever to smoke and take over-the-counter painkillers.
Not so much a job for the scientist as the historian, she mutters. This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2688035.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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