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Print pageThroughout the development of Fertell we have contacted many of the leading fertility experts, GPs and advocacy groups in the UK. We have built a panel of experts from across these disciplines to bring you their views, research and latest thinking around the subject of male and female fertility and infertility.
Male Fertility - by Professor Chris Barratt, University of Birmingham
Male fertility issues are common and maybe increasing
Approximately 1: 7 couples of reproductive age in the UK have difficulty conceiving a child, making sub-fertility a fairly common problem. It also seems that the incidence of ‘sub-fertility’ is increasing. Men now account for more fertility issues within couples than women. Male factors are usually diagnosed using a semen analysis.
Factors Affecting Male Fertility, by Professor Chris Barratt, University of Birmingham
There are some well known environmental and occupational factors which have a negative effect on male fertility. For example, men who are exposed at work to high levels of heavy metals (lead, cadmium) have lower sperm counts than men not exposed to these substances. There is some evidence that exposure to other potentially toxic drugs reduce the number of sperm produced e.g. pesticides. However, except in a minority of cases occupation has a relatively low influence.The following sections outline areas that affect male fertility and offer advice and suggestions as to how you can work towards improving your fertility health.
Why FSH is an important measure in female fertility - By Charles Kingsland, Consultant Gynaecologist
From a reproductive point of view, the difference between men and women is that men are ‘sperm factories’. Men have the ability to make sperm every single day of the week. Women, on the other hand, are egg warehouses, they do not have the ability to make eggs. The average woman has got her full complement of eggs before she is born and from that moment on her eggs will start to die off, even before she starts ovulating round about her fourteenth year.
How does age affect male fertility? by Dr. Allan Pacey, Senior Lecturer in Andrology
Sperm production in the male starts early in puberty and in the vast majority of men continues throughout adult life until death. Men do not have a menopause in the same way that women do and it is possible for them to father children well into old age (assuming that they are still sexually active and they are partnered with a woman who is fertile herself).
