1. Have sex!
So many patients get focused on issues that aren’t as critical such as how often to have sex, and whether their guy’s sperm count will lower if they don’t have the proper interval between sex. Actually, not having sex lowers the sperm count. When over 10,000 men were studied, going for more than 10 days without sex lowered the sperm count. In men with normal counts, daily ejaculation didn’t change their counts or the numbers of motile sperm. So have sex as much as you want for healthy sperm count and successful pregnancy
2. Stop smoking!
If you want a baby, both of you need to put out the cigarettes. Smoking is the least recognized, but possibly the most easily correctable contribution to infertility. Recent studies of infertility shows that even passive smoking affects your ability to get pregnant. Luckily secondhand smoke has been eliminated in so many places!
Don’t vape either. There are many known issues with women who smoke and fertility. We have known for a long time that smokers go through an earlier menopause due to earlier depletion of all their viable eggs. This translates into a 1-4 year earlier menopause. But we now know that the baseline pituitary hormone, FSH, levels creep up on smoker’s years before this and in fact the impact on ovulation and thus fertility sets in much earlier. No one has quite worked out if this is due to nicotine or the other products in cigarettes, so perhaps vaping wouldn’t cause as much effect (more research needs to be done regarding vaping and the effect on health).
3Avoid marijuana and other recreational/illicit drugs,
Alcohol in low-to-moderate amounts does not clearly harm semen quality; heavy use should be avoided.
4. Eat better dude!
In another first, the Aug 2009 issue of Fertility and Sterility research from Medellin, Columbia and Cleveland, Ohio reports that increasing antioxidant intake in men can improve the quality of their spermatozoa. We may be able to explain this just by the micronutrient selenium. It has been shown in rats that selenium is essential for the normal levels of testosterone and thus it was reported in the Journal of Reproductive Fertility in 1996 that selenium also helps to have normal spermatozoa. Miscarriages are extremely common in pregnancy, with about 20% of all pregnancies ending in early losses. Often the losses are due to blighted ovums that may be due to the egg or the sperm being abnormal. In turn the couples who had previously had recurrent embryo losses (miscarriages, recurrent defined as 3 or more) were more likely to have a successful pregnancy after the male partners were treated with anti-oxidants. These antioxidants were either from food or in multivitamins or vitamins C, E, folate, plus zinc and b-carotene. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy proteins while avoiding sugar sweetened beverages and processed/ultra-processed foods. Although we have to remember that the actual list of causes of miscarriages is quite long, genetic causes account for over half of all miscarriages, and you should see your gyno to make sure of other treatable conditions, here is another, relatively simple, and completely healthy, way to up those chances of not having a miscarriage!
5. Weight and exercise
Be a healthy weight, and engage in moderate exercise. Avoid excessive, high-intensity or elite-level training, which can reduce progressive sperm motility.
6. Scrotal heat and environmental exposures
Avoid scrotal heat — while many influencers encourage daily sauna heat over use of hot tubs, saunas, prolonged laptop use on the lap — which raises testicular temperature and impairs spermatogenesis is to be avoided. While some jobs don’t permit flexibility, try to limit exposure, where possible, to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (pesticides, phthalates, bisphenol A, heavy metals, industrial solvents) and use protective equipment/ventilation in occupational settings.
7. Sleep and stress
It takes 3 months to see significant sperm quality and quantity changes. So begin with things you can change. Prioritize sufficient, high-quality sleep and use stress-management techniques (mindfulness, exercise, CBT), which are associated with better antioxidant capacity and sperm DNA integrity. A regular yoga practice is helpful for a healthy sperm count and successful pregnancy.
