9th March 2015 | by MFC Team
Icing your testicles in order to have a baby? An unusual male fertility fix
It is estimated that 1 in 6 couples experience difficulty conceiving, with 30% of those problems being caused by problems with the male partner’s fertility. In the face of those statistics, increasingly men are being encouraged to try to improve their fertility through lifestyle changes, as well as other natural and sometimes unusual, “fertility fixes.”
Tom Sykes summarizes the oddest male fertility fixes in a recent article on The Daily Beast. For example, it’s long been known that men should avoid hot tubs and saunas when trying to conceive because of the negative impact of heat on sperm. Doctors believe that the scrotum should be about 2 degrees (F) cooler then the rest of the body. However, given the location of the testicles and the reality of snug fitting men’s clothing, achieving the desired cooler temperature can be challenging. So one suggestion has been that men consider applying ice to their testicles to achieve this optimal temperature. In fact, American entrepreneur Josh Shoemake, has taken this advice one step further and invented “Snowballs” – the first “ball-cooling underwear.” The underwear has a special compartment for a flexible gel pack that can be stored in the freezer until needed.
Not surprisingly, the scientific community has yet to offer 100% support for this type of simply male fertility fix. Given the wide range of issues that can affect a couple’s fertility, Dr. Allan Pacey, chairman of the British Fertility Society says:
“A man with good genes, large testicles, a good medical history, and a fertile partner with whom he has good sexual frequency will arguably be more fertile (or get his partner pregnant quicker) than a man with poor genes, small testicles, many medical problems and a poorly fertile partner with whom he doesn’t have regular sex. Lifestyle factors and alternative treatments have to be taken in the context of all this.”
Read more about Snowballs, and other male fertility fixes here.
Read more about lifestyle changes that may impact male fertility here and here.
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