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Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#331

It is interesting, I have a friend group that consists of about 5 married couples all of whom have been having issues conceiving and have been trying for a while now, but are still having issues. Curiously enough my wife and I just had our 4th and every time we've conceived within two months (even when I was hoping it would take a little longer). From what I hear our friends story is not unusual and many in our age b…

I'm a Catholic and fairly traditionally minded and am surprised by what you're saying since at my church, couples in this age range are on their fourth or fifth kid by the time they're 30. Even amongst the newest married couples, most are expecting within the first year. I understand we have different beliefs and such but since we're all in the same environment, how do we explain the simultaneous existence of the see…

Anecdata also Catholic. NFP and hormone therapy worked but it was a journey. Tried for 2+ years before realizing we had an issue and did NFP to conceive. Lots of other Catholic couples struggling with it go that route as it is a church-approved method.

Tried for 6 years (age 25-31). Finally considered adoption and then got pregnant and lost the first baby in a miscarriage. Had a healthy second baby at 32. Now have a third healthy baby at 34.

I think a lot of factors combine, but will state that we moved an average of once per year until age 30, so subconsciously we probably didn’t feel settled. It’s a very complex topic with too many variables to effectively model. And even when pregnancy occurs miscarriage rates are high.

I’ll note that young couples with kids are much more obvious in church (they make noise) and more likely to be at masses with other families. Young couples without kids often go to the later masses (in cities sometimes 9 PM).

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#332

This article covering well done meta analysis seems to be a lot more reputable that what was on this site 3 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33582534 I wonder if it gets as many upvotes? Or if hacker news prefers to get its fertility analysis from theoretical physicists.

Theoretical physicists emit lots of thermal energy and breed often.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I don't know how helpful this will end up being. Endocrine disruptors are airborne and globally ubiquitous in the form of micro-plastics. All drinking water in the world is contaminated with it. [1] I'm really not meaning to be dramatic on this, but we've completely missed the boat on this one while we were arguing about climate change, and it's much too late to do anything about it now.[2] I'll…

> the science seems to indicate it's much more likely that humanity will die off with a quiet whimper in a few generations. You didn't include a link to support the claim that humans only have "a few hundred years left at most". I think this is extremely unlikely to be true. What is your recommended reading?

This is purely speculation without a reference, I’ll edit to clarify. I did have this in the original post:

“It's worth noting that this is not a mainstream view, and that the UN projects a level population out to 2300”

I’ll clarify above regardless.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#334
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

Accept for most in the world IVF is a years salary.

And don't forget, if the IVF works, the costs of the kids will make that look paltry.

Source: Have 3 kids

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#335

It is interesting, I have a friend group that consists of about 5 married couples all of whom have been having issues conceiving and have been trying for a while now, but are still having issues. Curiously enough my wife and I just had our 4th and every time we've conceived within two months (even when I was hoping it would take a little longer). From what I hear our friends story is not unusual and many in our age b…

I think many people would be surprised at how many couples have done IVF recently… I wish I had reliable numbers for it.

This seems scary to me. Imagine a world where children have to be conceived in this way: it would be trivial for some authoritarian governments to now control child birth. I don’t mean disincentivizing like China did but actual control.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#336
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends’) is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at around 35 — if people started at 30, even, fertility is higher.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#337

The thesis of the book 'Countdown' is that this is largely due to widespread plastic and other endocrine disrupting chemicals. I believe this is one of the most important risks to humanity, after climate change, and global war. So far, I've taken some lifestyle changes to combat this: 1) Threw out all of my teflon cooking pans 2) Refuse to consume food in heated plastics 3) Throw out teabags (they have plastics). Use…

Along the same lines as tea-bags, is it possible k-cups have an effect? The keurig machine is already plastic, so does using a reusable cup buy you any benefit?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#338
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

I don't think that is how IVF works, you can't induce an adult female to produce eggs in any medically approved way. Apparently mammals are born with a finite number of eggs that just get used up as they get older.

Hormones are injected into the egg-having partner to induce a mass release of eggs. Ova are not created in this process.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#339
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

We did IVF and have a wonderful little boy. Would do it again to have our kid, but my goodness, the expense was overwhelming. We had to go into a non-trivial amount of debt to do IVF and I don’t know how anyone makes it work (short of what we did) we tried for 8 years to conceive naturally.

Tangentially, we spent some time looking at adoption and the total cost going through an agency I think would’ve been about the same.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#340
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

I don't think that is how IVF works, you can't induce an adult female to produce eggs in any medically approved way. Apparently mammals are born with a finite number of eggs that just get used up as they get older.

Yes, it is indeed how IVF works. You inject fertility drugs using a giant needle. It sucks.
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