Your diagnosis
It is considered that a couple may have sterility problems when, after a year of unprotected sexual relations, pregnancy is not achieved.
Although in colloquial terms sterility and infertility are used synonymously, they are two different terms. Sterility is the inability to become pregnant. Infertility is the inability to carry out a pregnancy, as occurs in cases of recurrent abortions.
In our country, infertility affects more than 20% of couples of reproductive age. Of all these cases, it is considered that a third are due to male causes, a third to female causes, and the remaining third to both members of the couple.
The appropriate biological age to have children is between 20 and 30 and today they are having children between 30 and 40 years old.
The woman is born with an already established supply of oocytes that begin to atresia and age after menarche. At 35 years of age, approximately 10% of the eggs remain and the fewer that remain, the worse their quality is since the passage of time causes alterations in the meiosis process of their chromosomes.
The monthly fertility rate in women aged 40 is less than 5% per cycle. According to data from Institut Marquès, with the genetic analysis of the embryos before transferring them to the woman, a percentage of chromosomal anomalies is seen that increases according to age: in the 39 to 42 age group the percentage of embryos with these anomalies is 85% . Therefore, in these cases, a Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis is recommended to analyze all the chromosomes of the embryo and only transfer those embryos that are healthy to the woman.
The debate on the deterioration of human semen quality began more than 30 years ago. A study published in 1992 concluded that the average sperm concentration had decreased worldwide by almost 50% from 1940 to 1990. At a rate of 1% annually. During the last 20 years, a decrease in the fertility rate has been observed, at least in industrialized countries. Beyond the doubt of the role that the profound social changes experienced by industrialized societies may play in this decline, suspicion is spreading among the scientific community of the existence of a deterioration in semen quality.
In this sense, Institut Marqués has dedicated a large part of its R&D effort to the study of the masculine factor in the last decade. Our research and publications are demonstrating to the scientific community that the factors classically attributed to male infertility in terms of poor lifestyle habits are not the main cause of male infertility. According to our research, the key moment of affectation occurs during the fetal development of the testicle and is due to “estrogenic disruptors”, a long list of chemical substances that in the human body act as estrogens and that allow a woman to offer through the blood too high levels of estrogen to your male fetus during pregnancy. This explains the important variations in semen quality between countries and regions of the same country and makes us consider environmental contamination by chemical materials as the main cause of male sterility.
Continuing with this line of research, Institut Marquès has carried out several studies on seminal quality and has recently analyzed together with the CSIC (Higher Council for Scientific Research) the concentration of endocrine disruptors in breast milk in the autonomous communities with great differences in the quality of the semen.
In principle, it is recommended that a couple who wants to have a child consult a doctor after a year of having sexual relations. But if one of the members of the couple knows that they have a possible cause of infertility (previous gynecological surgery, endometriosis, advanced age, etc.), the study can be started whenever they wish.
It is advisable to always consult a gynecologist who specializes in this topic. Sterility is one of the medical sciences that has advanced the most in recent years. Even the initial assessment of the couple is faster and more effective if it is carried out by a team of doctors dedicated exclusively to Assisted Reproduction.
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