By Omotayo Edubi
Cliam : there have been claimes that as men get older, the quality of their sperm can suffer, among other challenges, leading to overall declines in fertility.
According to Scott Lundy, M.D., a male infertility and sexual medicine staff urologist at Cleveland Clinic, Age certainly plays a role in male fertility. “For men it’s a slower decline,” says “As we age, the testicles, like any other organ, don’t function as well as they used to.”
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Men completely replace their sperm every three months, and continue to do so throughout their life. So sperm don’t have a ‘use by’ date in quite the same way as a woman’s eggs do. But studies indicate that semen volume, morphology (shape) and motility (the way it moves) does decline as a man ages1.
According to Forbes Health, fertility starts to decline for men when they’re in their late 40s, with up to a 23% annual decline in fertility beginning at age 39.
“One study suggested that conceiving during a 12-month period was 30% less likely for men who were over the age of 40 compared to men who were under 30 years old..”
Another study of intrauterine artificial insemination found that after six cycles, men who were 35 or under had a fertility rate of 52%, whereas men over the age of 35 had a fertility rate of 25%.
Fact: It’s possible for a man to father a child at any age, however the likelihood of successful conception does decline with age. Studies have shown sperm concentration and the proportion of sperm of normal morphology decline after the age of 45 making it more difficult to conceive.
