More on that male fertility decline thing...
New research has revealed that male fertility goes into decline after the age of 40. So does that mean there is now a biological clock for men as well as women? And if so, how will it influence when couples decide to start a family? Andy Beckett investigates.
Interesting:
The French findings feel boldly counter-intuitive, in the light of decades of newspaper articles warning women, often in the most finger-pointing and sensationalist terms, about the perils of delaying having children. Few women in their 30s can be unaware of the notions that if they are too busy building a career, or too materialistic or selfish or preoccupied to get pregnant before the biological deadline of their early 40s, then they'll have no family. Midlife infertility, essentially, is seen as a female problem.
In fact, over the past five years similar investigations in Britain and the United States have anticipated the French findings, and have also found late fatherhood to be riskier than traditionally assumed. One study found would-be fathers over 40 half as likely to make their partners pregnant as men under 25; another found fathers over 50 quadrupling the likelihood of having a child with Down's Syndrome.
If anyone notices, there are very large implications for the rhythm of male lives and the balance of power between men and women. "This research will be a relief to a lot of women who are used to a culture where they carry the responsibility for fertility," says the author and journalist Melissa Benn, who has written extensively about the politics of motherhood. "If men were to take this information seriously, it could help to synchronise male and female desires and bodily needs."
But men could take some persuading about their reproductive frailties. It has long been known to medical professionals, says Richard Kennedy, spokesman for the British Fertility Society, that across all relevant age groups, "the man is the leading cause of fertility problems. Yet still there is an attitude from men that, 'It can't be me that's the problem.'"
Though what 'long' means in this context, and the extent to which this knowledge has percolated into other parts of the medical profession, are matters of question. But props to the article for not getting into the whole 'declining male fertility' hoohah and sticking to the age and gender stuff.
As I noted in a comment to the previous post, I've always been exceedingly dubious about those claims that 'OMG MALE FERTILITY IS DECLINING WOES OH NOES': because the time frame given is usually 'over the past 50 years', and I cannot believe that 50 years ago routine seminal testing of the population was common, or even that there was much research going on. And if there was, it was probably working on small and atypical groups (e.g. medical students), probably still young and more or less at their peak of sperm production. Especially in the light of significant evidence that even when an infertile couple got themselves to a doctor, outside a few specialised infertility units the doctor was likely to consider that it must be all the woman's fault, get her under the knife.
Possibly pertinent: in some 1930s correspondence between a contraception researcher and a doctor friend, the researcher remarks that he really, really needs some human semen for in-vitro testing. Doctor friend comes back with laddish remarks about getting his close friends to make 'weekly donations': this clearly wasn't something that got advertised in the student mag with an appeal for volunteers.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the lingering horror over masturbation might have had something to do with all this.
And on small and atypical groups setting a totally chimerical standard, witness the common belief that before Modern Times women started menarche very much later. This idea was apparently propagated via the citing of an article by Scandinavian doctor which was, in fact, specifically about cases he'd seen in clinical practice of girls who were 17 and hadn't yet come on brought to him by their concerned mamas. I.e. a small and atypical group regarded as abnormal by the standards of the day.