Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#521

Post by notinfuriated » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #389

thehappypm wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, I can confirm this based on personal experience with a gynecologist telling my wife that at 35 the pregnancy is considered a "geriatric pregnancy" (apparently some docs now call it "AMA"...advanced maternal age). This shocked both of us, frankly. We were aware of what the actuarial tables will tell you regarding birth defect rates related to maternal age, but hearing the term geriatric in your mid-thirties is qu…

> Nonetheless we were able to conceive in our late 30s without help or any trouble. Our baby is super healthy. Apparently we lucked out.

Same here, without 'trying' either (as in, we were not actively trying to get pregnant). It was surprising for us to hear the term "geriatric pregnancy" as well, and the ob/gyn seemed to utter out loud a lot of the worst assumptions about what could happen in the pregnancy. She also seemed somewhat surprised and judgmental that our baby wasn't conceived using IVF, which was a bit off-putting but she was otherwise a great doctor.

Worst thing that happened during the pregnancy was some sort of bladder issue caused by the baby being seated in her mom's pelvic floor or something. Not really a complication for the fetus, just for her mom being unable to pee without a catheter. I suspect this was more of an mechanical/anatomical effect that would have occurred regardless of age, but I wouldn't know. The baby also had a bit of an elevated respiratory rate when born, but she's fine now.

That said, my impression of the whole process was that this plays out quite differently for everyone. Ours was surprisingly easy, especially the labor part. I'm left wondering how well they've controlled for factors like the physical fitness of the mother (and father, perhaps), any genetic factors, etc. when trying to figure out how likely fertility issues, birth defects, or other problems occur based on age of the parents. Is there not also a generally higher correlation to poorer physical health as people age?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#522

Post by yamtaddle » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #440

droopyEyelids wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough…

Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.

Yeah, it'd be fuckin' great because the grandparents could help out a lot more, get active quality time with their grandkids when they're old enough to remember it instead of being that furniture-like senile person stuck in a chair of whom they have few fond memories, and so on.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#523

Post by seydor » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

biomcgary wrote: post #469

Years ago, I published a paper suggesting that humans have genomic evidence of strong selection pressure on some sex hormone pathways. So, I am quite curious about whether sperm counts are plummeting solely because of environmental changes (e.g., human created hormone influencing toxins, including "the pill") or also because natural selection in humans has drastically changed with the advent of modern society. In spe…

Wasn't Sexual selection even more weird throughout recorded history? Marriage concerns basically was the opposite of SS , where economics and religion trumped natural selection, particularly in the western world we re talking about.

Even today millions of people are marrying contrary to selection gradients (arranged marriages, marrying relatives, too young/old , excluding other religions etc etc.). Do these people have lower/higher sperm counts?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#524

Post by pbiggar » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

While the trend has been around much longer than Covid, it looks like Covid is going to make it a lot worse! Sperm count is down 53% [1] for people who had covid, and it seems 94% of Americans have had Covid thus far.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27971

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#525

Post by SamPatt » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #440

droopyEyelids wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough…

Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.

I got married at 20 and had my first child at 22. I'll likely be a grandparent in my 40s.

From a selfish perspective, I was too young to really understand what I was taking on, and it's been difficult at times. I missed out on many things. Not much of my adult life has been focused solely on my needs.

However from a family perspective, it has worked out quite well. I worked some difficult jobs at first but eventually got my degree, started a career, left to cofound a startup, bought a house. Kids are doing well.

People think you have to do all that before you have kids, but that's not true. When you're already young, kinda dumb and kinda poor then you can make it work.

I'm now 37 and my youngest is 10, so I'm not running around chasing kids anymore. I've got enough energy to help them with school. I like being a young dad now.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#526

Post by jehb » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #456

jehb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comments feels a little ambiguous, and driving replies for two separate issues. At a societal level, is an imbalanced population pyramid a problem? Yes, and many countries are solving this by opening up immigration options. Should an individual opting not to have children be expected to have negative consequences in old age? IMHO, no.

> Should an individual opting not to have children be expected to have negative consequences in old age? IMHO, no. The question is then who will care for these people when they get old? Other people's children? So other people should have children, put the effort to raise and educate them for your benefit? This is a very egotistic view.

I would argue that expecting your children to care for you is actually far more egotistic than merely expecting a social safety net for all people to exist.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#527

Post by willcipriano » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

waboremo wrote: post #463

Aeolun wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, kids may be incompatible with a lot of lifestyles, but I wouldn’t call them inherently expensive. You just have to adjust your expectations.

>adjust your expectations That's just another way to say they're inherently expensive. If they weren't, why are you adjusting your expectations? I do think we exaggerate greatly how expensive kids are, for the most part the "exchange" is in time and not money. However, they are still a noticeable cost especially in countries with not great support systems.

> for the most part the "exchange" is in time and not money.

I agree. If you can have one person stay home kids are pretty cheap. My wife won't stay home, but if we could swap salaries I'd do it myself in a heartbeat.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#528

Post by satvikpendem » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #440

droopyEyelids wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough…

Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.

I can imagine (and know many people like this). It's pretty common in non-Western or poorer countries where people had kids earlier due mainly to economic reasons (and also lack of availability of birth control).

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#529

Post by halpmeh » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

The age at which children enter puberty is also decreasing pretty rapidly, especially for girls [0]. 20% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ, which is nearly twice that of millennials [1]. Clearly something is going on with our collective hormones.

[0]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2019.00147... [1]: https://www.axios.com/2022/02/17/lgbtq-generation-z-gallup

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#530

Post by monkeynotes » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #506

monkeynotes wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better check your plumbing because I hate to say it, PEX is everywhere and it's yet to be shown if there are long term effects on having plastic plumbing everywhere. My kitchen water tastes like plastic all the time.

PEX is fine. Water that sat in a PEX pipe is chemically indistinguishable from water held in a test tube, unlike what happens with water in PVC piping. Another indicator of fine-ness is that PE and PP tubing is used extensively in chemical process plants where high purity is required.

I'd like to see a source for "chemically indistinguishable". Here is what I've read: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/amid-pipe-wars-resear...