The "F" Word

Lifestyle Relationships
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…or better know as, “Fertility”

It is such a big issue in our society. Western or otherwise. Someone in some thread said how it is ok, no, imperative that women be married at a young age because their fertility is good until the “best until” date. True, girls are born with all the eggs, while men produce their sperm as time passes. Therefore, it is ok that a 16 year old be married off to a 60 year old, because she is at that perfect age. But why do people tend to ignore the fact that as men age, the quality of their sperm deteriotes as well. Also, the sperm is much more susceptible to environmental damage than the egg is. Smoke too much, well, most certainly, your sperm count will go down. Exposure to lead in your environment you say? Well, be ready for 2-headed sperm. And so, chances of a viable zygote being produced are very slim. But most often than not, that will come down to the woman’s fertility.

All of this puts such unecessary pressure on the woman. A woman is pressurised to get pregnant as soon as possible. Before time runs out…

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Re: The "F" Word

A man's age affects fertility to a much smaller degree and 20 or 30 years later than in a woman. There have been documented cases of older men in their 90s being able to impregnate chicks.

Lead poisoning, mutation from radiation, lower sperm production with age are factors to consider, but are less of an issue when you pitch them with the genetic risks associted with women having babies in their late thirties or 40s.
Not to mention that the quality of the egg declines rapidly with age and is passed on to the embryo. How about miscarriages? may be stats will change your mind.

Maternal age Loss rate
< 30 --------------5%
30-34 ------------7%
35-39 -----------15%
40-41 -----------25%
42-43 -----------35%
44-46 -----------50%

And the stats on Infertility?

By age 30, 7% of womenwere infertile
By age 35, 11% of women were infertile
By age 40, 33% of women were infertile
At age 45, 87% of women were infertile

Dont fool yourself. get married soon. Thank me later.

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Re: The "F" Word

yea ofcourse there is pressure. This is one of the major things a husband wants from his wife: babies.

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Dope is right. Although there is risk with an older man, nonetheless, even if its less than with an older woman. A woman's biological fertility window is smaller. You can say this is unfortunate. The other way of looking at it, is that there is only a short time where a woman needs to worry about pregnancies and children. Women have the luxury of being 50 and doing fun things with their lives if they keep in shape. Men in their 50's still run the risk of impregnating women and then having to deal with the responsibility of a baby. I bet desis don't look at it like that way.

Although I agree with khumar. There is less awareness in desi culture of how a man can play the dysfunctional sexual partner...

Khumar, also, in desi culture, men are usually not blamed for infertility although for a higher percentage of infertility problems between couples, men are physically responsible. I remember reading that somewhere. Please let me know if I'm wrong on that.

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Having suffered thru this.... yes, female fertility takes a nose dive after 30. But there is no fertility doc who will treat an infertile female without first testing the male partner's fertility - because men too can be infertile. When I was going thru this, there were almost as many male as there were female infertility patients in the waiting room.

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^^ thats right Mamaof, male partner should be tested before the female undergoes any invasive tests.
P.S. Male fertility is more difficult to treat...

bichRaiN tu dua'Oon se bhi milte nahi kuch log
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^ You're studying medicine. Is male infertility more common, percentage wise, or female infertility?

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Big gap of silence.

You think you are pretty alert ?
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What do you want me to say here PCG? Males are more infertile and they blame females because all males are pigs ?
Anyways, I haven't seen any statistics in this regard.

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I'll venture an educated guess and say that male infertility is the factor probably around 25 to 30 percent of the time. There are many factors that can cause it - tail-less swimmers, too many proteins, low sperm count. I knew one couple who underwent infertility treatment only to find that her husbands sperm could not/did not have the ability to penetrate the egg. Apparently, sperm met egg and at that point, sperm is supposed to release some protein that allows it to enter and fertilize the egg. Since this guy's sperm didnt have any of that protein, the little swimmers just sat knocking at the door but couldnt get in so to speak. Turns out they had to have sperm injected into the egg in a petri dish, then injected into the gal and then voila, they had twins. Anyway, point being...male infertility is a factor I'd say at least 25 percent of the time and possibly more.

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Re: The "F" Word

as far as male infertility is concerned, two major factors are abnormal sperm count ( low count, reduced motility of sperms,abnormal morphology, and reduced volume of semen) and coital problems ( low frequency n impotence ).

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Re: The “F” Word

From the American Pregnancy Association

Infertility is a condition that affects approximately one out of every six couples. An infertility diagnosis is given to a couple who is unsuccessful with their attempts to get pregnant over the course of one year. When the problem exists within the male partner, it is referred to as male infertility. Male infertility factors contribute to approximately 50% of all infertility cases, and male infertility alone accounts for approximately one-third of all infertility cases.
%between%

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Re: The "F" Word

Unecessary pressure on woman ? how many 16 year old girls get marred to a 60 year old dude ?
The pressure to get pregnant early is because there is a rise in complications in both the baby ( genetic for example Trisomy ) and during maternity and child birth associated with advanced maternal age especially if its the first time shez getting pregnant.
Why do u have to blame everything on guys ?

paya in Pheonix
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Re: The "F" Word

sac, I think she's talking about girls who are forced to not go to college or grad school, etc, just so that they can get married off and become pregnant. Its like, with some families, if you're not pregnant by 20-22 years, then you're aged and moldy meat.

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ab hardly aisa hota hey

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Attia jaldi say apnay shadi ka bandobast karing :blush:

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Never mind, I thought you were talking the "other" word...

Everything is possible in gupshup now.. :D

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I don't think that its rare, sac. Quite the contrary, most Pakistanis fall into the poor / lower-middle class brackets. In those communities, lots of crazy social behavior takes place.

I think I should say goodby to this nick.
I think I should say goodby to this nick.
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Re: The "F" Word

omg, i should never start a thread when it is the first week of uni, and eid is coming up, and GS decided to go down, many, many times.

anyways, the observation that i had was how the confirmed males got so offended when i tried to ahem put the blame on them. both of 'em immediately threw out statistics about how it is all dependent on the women, that fertility is the issue that concerns them only. puleez...i know those stats. i have studied and written tests on those stats. i know that the older a woman gets, the higher the chances are that she will have a child with Down syndrome. (certainly makes ME think...). and i know how the eggs do get bad (using that word for the lack of a better word). ofcourse they will go bad...they are after all part of the body, something we have since the beginning of times. and if your joints can get messed up, why not that stuff.

but my point is, well one of the points anyways, is that how come that justifies that a girl has to marry a man. i mean, what i don't understand why, because of that reason the age gap between a man and a woman has to be huge. like i said before, in some other thread because of the whole bad egg issues, it is imperative that the girl has to be as young as possible.

the other point that i want to discuss is that ofcourse we have all those stats on women. because (as studied in my women psych course) the research performed on women primarily has concerned not about their physical health, but, again, their fertility. there is SO much research on the ovaries of a woman, and not enough on her, say heart or spleen. as far as i know, not a lot of research has been performed on the male issue. that is why it is so easy to spew off statistics "blaming" the women for the lack of the child, or the possible lack of the child. i mean, we know so much more about how a male child is born, or developed in the womb, and not so much about what makes a female child a female. (XX is considered the default, and you could look at it either way). so we really don't know what the condition of the sperm is after a certain age, or how environmental conditions effects it. though research is beginning to appear, but in trickles.

oh and also, the whole 90 year old concieving a child. i bet it is not due to natural methods. there is a reason it isn't supposed to rise after a certain age.

and also also, i read about this real case where a couple was unable to concieve. tests proved that the wife was not to blame. so the docs wanted to do research on the husband. but he refused to have tests performed on him, believiing his virility (is that how you spell it?) but through enough convincing, he allowed for a test to occur. turns out, his sperm was messed up! 2 heads, tail less, and other stuff. so turned out that his work environment was effecting the condition of his sperm. something to think about :)

(that was long...)

>> Opposites Attract <<
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nvm :)