Male infertility is the principal cause in roughly 30 to 40 percent of cases where couples are struggling to conceive a child naturally. A male is said to be infertile if he is not able to impregnate his partner even after regular sexual intercourse. Causes for the same include a low sperm count, poor sperm motility, structurally defective sperm and tubal blockages that stop the sperm from meeting the semen during ejaculation.
A low sperm count is when a male’s semen sample has a lower number of sperm than normal. Sperm motility refers to the ability of the sperm to swim. A sample is said to be of low motility when its sperm does not move fast enough. Male infertility can also be caused by morphologically defective sperm, whereby the sperm’s structure makes it unfit to fertilize the female’s egg. Low testosterone levels, stress resulting from emotional and psychological upheavals, physiological issues caused by certain types of injuries (for e.g. the spinal cord), and the damaging nature of cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy can also negatively impact a male’s fertility.
An immediate workaround for couples where male infertility is the problem include treatments like IUI (intrauterine insemination), IVF (in vitro fertilization), IVF-ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), surgical sperm retrieval and hormone therapies/medications.
That said, a number of borderline cases of male infertility can be rectified by natural methods. For instance, consuming vitamin supplements can help improve sperm health while regular and intensive exercise can stimulate the body into producing more testosterone. Managing stress also does wonders as more stress causes the secretion of higher levels of cortisol, which is a hormone that counteracts the effects of testosterone. Lastly, males wishing to father a child should cut down on the consumption of alcohol while completely eliminating the habit of smoking from their lives.