Over the past 20+ years in clinic, I have had many parents asking whether they could have or should have done things differently in relation to the health outcomes of their child/children.
This is one question that cannot be answered definitively just as we cannot go back in time and have another try at making a healthy baby. What I have heard quite often is one or both parents saying that “next time” they would do things differently.
While every couple is different and wonderfully unique, there are a few fundamentals that have been shown to result in positive fertility, pregnancy and live birth outcomes.
Those fundamentals form the basis for my book and one of the most ignored relates to men’s health and fertility. Even those men whose partners put the book in front of them to read. Some women even read to their partners only to find that he chooses to ignore the advice – even following an early pregnancy loss.
Repeatedly it is only the woman who comes in to clinic for help. Interestingly, it is those couples where both make an active effort to prepare for conception who end up conceiving quickly, and where the woman has a viable pregnancy culminating in the birth of a healthy full term baby. Unfortunately, the same is far too often not the case where only one parent makes an effort.
Why? I wish I knew and would love to hear your comments and perhaps together we can motivate more men to realise the impacts of ignoring their health (and the health of their sperm).
