Improving your health can improve your birthrate ( ability to get meaning ) and the future health of your child .
Contents
Top tips for planning a pregnancy for men
- Cut down your alcohol intake to no more than 3-4 units a day.
- Quit smoking, even passive smoking affects female fertility and pregnancy.
- Get tested for STIs if there is any reason you think you are at risk of having one.
- Lose weight if you have a high BMI.
- Keep testicles (balls) cool (slightly below body temperature) by
- avoiding hot showers and sitting in hot baths
- avoiding saunas, jacuzzis or sitting for long periods with a laptop on your lap
- wearing loose trousers and underwear.
- avoiding cycling and/or sitting down for long periods.
- Eat five portions a day of fruit and vegetables, including walnuts.
- Exercise for at least 20-30 minutes three times a week.
- Talk to your doctor if you have sickle cell disease or thalassaemia or if your ancestors are from a country that means you might be at higher risk of being a carrier (Africa, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, India, Pakistan, south and southeast Asia, and the Middle East).
Smoking and fertility
Smoking can cause fertility problems in men. It can :
- reduce the quality of sperm
- cause a lower sperm count
- affect the sperm’s ability to swim (motility)
- cause male sexual impotence (inability to get or maintain an erection).
The good news is that stopping smoke can reverse the damage.
Reading: How to improve male fertility
To get support to quit smoke sign up for the NHS Smoke-free emails .
Passive smoking
Secondhand smoke is highly toxic. Most of it is invisible and doesn ’ thymine spirit. If you smoke and your partner does not, you need to be mindful that secondhand smoke ( besides known as passive fume ) can affect their richness and health .
Breathing in the fume from your cigarettes can damage their ability to get meaning. open windows and doors or smoke in another room will not make it condom .
Find out more about the risks of secondhand fastball .
Helping your partner to quit
If your partner smokes, support her to quit. Smoking can cause serious complications in pregnancy and increases the risk of spontaneous abortion and spontaneous abortion .
If you smoke besides, she is less likely to quit .
Smokers who get back from family and friends are more likely to stop. Try and quit smoking together. There is lots of support to help you .
Alcohol and fertility
Drinking besides much can affect your fertility .
regularly drinking alcohol above recommended levels can cause problems with birthrate for men and women .
The recommend limit is 14 units of alcohol per week. People who drink deoxyadenosine monophosphate much as 14 units per workweek should spread this evenly over 3 days or more .
In men, drinking besides much alcohol can cause :
- loss of interest in sex
- reduced testosterone levels
- low sperm quality and quantity.
The dependable news program is these effects can be reversed if you stop drinking besides much .
Doctors have agreed that the safest thing for women to do is not drink any alcohol at all if they ’ re are actively trying for a baby. many men support their partner by cutting down or avoiding alcohol excessively when they are getting meaning and afterwards .
Weight and fertility
Having an fleshy or corpulent BMI can affect the quality and measure of your sperm, which can contribute to richness problems. Your slant may besides have an effect on your child ’ mho DNA, making them more probable to have a high BMI themselves .
Your BMI ( Body Mass Index ) is a measure that uses your stature and system of weights to work out if your weight is healthy .
For most adults, a BMI of :
- less than18.5 = underweight
- 18.5 to 24.9 = healthy weight
- 25 to 29.9 = overweight
- 30 to 39.9 = obese
- 40 or more =severely obese
You can calculate your BMI here
The best way to get closer to a healthy BMI is to eat a healthy diet and become physically active .
Nutrition and fertility
In planning a pregnancy, men can besides improve their fertility by looking at their diet. Research has shown that sperm quality is affected by diet. The foods that have a positive effect on fertility are very like to those shown to have a cocksure consequence for women ’ randomness richness .
- Diets high in processed meat, alcohol, caffeine, red meat, saturated fatty acids and trans fats were linked to low quality semen.
- Diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish were linked to better semen quality.
Eating a helping of walnuts a sidereal day has been shown to have a help sperm motion ( ability to swim ) .
STIs and fertility
sexually transmitted infections ( STIs ) are passed from one person to another through unprotected arouse ( sex without using contraception, such as a condom ) or genital contact .
Common symptoms of an STI include :
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- unusual discharge from the penis or anus
- a rash
- itchiness, lumps, skin growths, blisters or sores around the genitals or anus
- pain when urinating.
Chlamydia and gonorrhoea are two of the most common STIs in the UK. Both can be cured with antibiotics but lead to sterility in men and women if they are not treated .
The gamble of sterility is lower in both conditions if they are treated early. The more times you have gonorrhoea, the more likely you are to have complications .
many people with chlamydia and gonorrhea wear ’ thymine experience any symptoms at all .
however, most STIs have no symptoms or entirely meek symptoms that you may not realise are caused by an infection .
This means that many people who have an STI will not know they are infected and will pass it on to any intimate partners .
If you have any reason to believe you may have an STI, talk to your spouse as some STIs affect a develop child. treatment can prevent this .
Getting tested
The best places to go are a genito-urinary medicine ( GUM ) clinic, sexual health clinic, your GP or a young people ’ sulfur clinic .
All information given will be kept confidential, and the tests are only done with your permission .
You can find details of local anesthetic GUM clinics on the NHS Choices web site, by contacting the Sexual Health Line on 0300 123 7123 or on the Family Planning Association ’ s web site
Sperm temperature
The testicles ( balls ) are outside the consistency alternatively if inside because they need to be kept slenderly cooler than the stay of you to produce eminent quality sperm. The best temperature for sperm is slightly below soundbox temperature .
If you ‘re planning a pregnancy, you may want to try to avoid overheating your testicles. For exercise ,
- don’t have a warm laptop on your lap for long periods
- avoid saunas or hot baths
- if you sit still for long periods, get up and move around regularly
- if you work in a hot environment, like a kitchen or a bakery take regular breaks outside.
Wearing fast underwear or fast trousers makes your testicles hot as it pushes them closer to the soundbox. Although rigorous underwear hasn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate been shown in research to affect sperm quality, you may want to wear baggy underwear and trousers, such as boxer shorts rather .
Stress
try can affect your relationship and lower your or your partner ’ s arouse drive. This may reduce how much you have sex. Severe and ongoing try can besides limit sperm output .
Trying to conceive a baby can be nerve-racking, specially if you have been trying for a while. It ’ mho authoritative that you and your partner take time to relax. You may find these stress relief tips helpful if you are finding that it is becoming harmful to your kinship .
Caffeine
Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, some easy drinks and energy drinks .
high levels of caffeine during pregnancy has been linked to miscarriage and first gear birth weight. There is besides some aesculapian evidence that men consuming besides much caffeine while you trying to conceive can increase the risk of spontaneous abortion. The evidence suggests that this applies to both women and men .
If you ’ re plan to conceive, you and your collaborator may find it helpful to get into the habit of limiting your caffeine inhalation to 200mg a day. This is around two mugs of instant coffee bean a day or one countenance of percolate coffee bean. Calculate your caffeine inhalation here .
Sickle cell and thalassaemia
Sickle cellular telephone disease ( SCD ) and thalassemia are blood disorders you inherit through your family. If you are a mailman of sickle cell or thalassemia, you can pass these conditions on to your baby .
These conditions affect hemoglobin, a separate of the rake that carries oxygen around the body. People who have these conditions will need specialist worry throughout their lives .
It is significant to know whether your baby is at gamble because babies with sickle cell disease can receive early treatment, including immunisations and antibiotics .
This, along with digest from their parents, will help prevent good illness and allow the child to live a healthier liveliness.
Find out more here about sickle cell and thalassemia .
When to get help with fertility
It normally takes several months to conceive so if you ’ ve been trying for a child for about a year ( or 6 months if your collaborator is 35 or all over ) without success then it ’ s credibly a good time to see your GP, either with your partner or individually .
If you find that either of you are becoming stressed because you haven ’ t conceived even, then make an appointee preferably. Read more about male and female birthrate here and fertility treatment .