INFERTILITY?DON'T SPARE THE MAN

As an African, having children immediately after marriage is the reward of every successful marriage. A delay of signs and symptoms of pregnancy in the wife after 4 to 6months of tieing the knot will definitely result in eye brow raising from both families, each directly/indirectly pointing accusing fingers at the female, even if there are tell tale signs saying otherwise.

To avoid this, there has been a shift in marriage technique in this recent generation, the saying goes "I wan preg am before I marry am".

I run my gynae clinic once a week, seeing a minimum of 15 fresh infertility cases per clinic, 60 fresh cases per month, am just one of about 6 doctors running the clinic, we share the cases equally to increase work rate and productivity, this makes the total of fresh infertility cases to about 360 per month!.

For the sake of this awareness, I spoke with my colleagues to find out the commonest cause of infertility in couples, using my hospital as a case study, surprisingly, the male factor contributes up to 50% of infertility in this environment, the remaining shared by other factors which could be female alone or both male and female combined or unknown factors.

While in school I was thought infertility affects about 30% of males, during my housemanship I learnt infertility affect both male and female equally, few years into my practice, this is what I found, infertility in males is fast increasing by the day, infact it's getting so alarming right now.

The commonest cause of infertility in males is low sperm count, a condition called OLIGOSPERMIA. A condition diagnosed when the total number of spermatozoa in the male ejaculate is less than 20 million per one Mil.
There are various parameters to analyse in the sperm
The volume
The count
The motility
The morphology
The activity
The inactivity
Infections .

This article is not based on analysing the parameters one by one, rather it's based on general discussion on male infertility, for questions on these parameters pls drop a comment on d blog or follow us on Twitter for dms @dr90ng.

Various factors are implicated as causes of male infertility but using my direct environment as a focus, the following factors are highly implicated
Infections
Stress
Hormonal imbalance
Varicocoele
Malnutrition
Weight loss
Stock fish consumption
Smoking
Environmental factors eg ozone layer depletion.

Infection is the commonest of all patients seen,by culturing the sperm the Organisms implicated mostly are staphylococcus aureus, chlamydia and e. Coli.
Low testosterone hormone, high prolactin are the common hormonal problems seen

Recent studies shows consumption of stock fish to be a cause of male infertility in Nigeria, this poses a big problem because stock fish is of significant "stomach infrastructure" in the igbo culture.

Recent studies also point accusing fingers on the harsh environmental conditions in the Niger delta, raising the heavy metals and fossils level in the blood. A fertility expert, joint pioneer of test tube baby /In vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in Nigeria. Professor Oladapo Ashiru told the Guardian

"We have seen people who work in the
Niger Delta region. The ozone layer in that place is bad and
there is a lot of pollution. One of my students did a Ph.D
and saw that those extracts of crude oil have severe effect
on fertility of both male and female, they compromise them
severely. No oil industry will encourage that level of pollution.
"Recently too we found out that people who work in that
area if they carry out some tests they see they have some
heavy metals and oil fossils in them and those things have
the capacity to depress gametogenesis because gametes
forming is dependent on some mitochondria activities that
require oxygen, that require the best form of enzymes".

Varicocele occurs when the network of veins that leave the testis
(pampiniform plexus) become elongated and enlarged. The valves
within the pampiniform plexus when they work properly only allow
the blood to flow away from the testicle - if there is something
wrong with them, blood builds up.
Approximately 15% of men have a varicocele. A varicocele develops
over time.
It is common for the patient to experience no signs or symptoms at
all. In some cases there may be pain.
Varicocoele is commonly described as bag of worms in the testes, a condition that's is treatable by the urologist.

Most cases of male infertility are treatable depending on severity and point of diagnosis, male infertility is a broad topic, and we can only cover few at a presentation.

The use of antibiotics to treat infection, hormonal replacement for hormonal disorders, multivitamins, relief of stress,tested and researched herbal drugs, weight gain, surgery and life style modifications are the common methods used in my center to treat male infertility.

A method am researching and applying recently on my patients in male infertility treatment has to do with nutrition, most important of this nutrition is the increment in TOMATOES consumption, yes you heard me right, tomatoes!!.

It has been found that tomatoes is highly rich in the substance LYCOPENE. A bowl of tomato soup every day can help boost fertility among men, scientists claimed.

They have discovered that lycopene, which gives tomatoes their bright red colouring, can turn sperm into super-sperm.

Researchers at the University of Portsmouth studied the effect of lycopene in the diet on a random group of six healthy men, with an average age of 42. The men were asked to consume a 400g tin of Heinz cream of tomato soup every day for two weeks.

Are u a doctor? Do u have any recent findings on male infertility, do you know anyone with male infertility issue, drop your comments below, follow us on Twitter @dr90ng, like our page on Facebook https://m.facebook.com /Dr90ng. Let's talk about it.