Take these proactive steps to minimize male infertility risks

Male infertility is a growing concern among couples trying to conceive. While various factors can contribute to fertility issues, adopting a healthy lifestyle and making informed choices can significantly reduce the risk. Here are some effective strategies to minimize the chances of male infertility.

1. Maintain a Healthy Weight: Obesity is linked to hormonal imbalances that can affect sperm production and quality. A balanced diet and regular exercise can help maintain an optimal weight and improve overall fertility.

2. Avoid Smoking and Excessive Alcohol: Tobacco and excessive alcohol consumption negatively impact sperm count and motility. Quitting smoking and moderating alcohol intake are crucial steps toward better reproductive health.

3. Limit Exposure to Toxins: Prolonged exposure to environmental pollutants, chemicals, and radiation can harm sperm quality. Wear protective gear when

Do you know the ways to deal with male infertility?

Male infertility is a serious issue that affects many couples worldwide. It can be caused by lifestyle choices, medical conditions and genetics. The good news is that there are many moves men can make to boost their fertility and increase their chances of conceiving a child. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore different ways to deal with male infertility.

Lifestyle changes

One of the most effective ways to improve male fertility is through positive lifestyle changes. These changes include:

a) Diet: A balanced diet of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals can produce healthy sperm. Include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and plenty of water in your daily diet.

b) Exercise - Regular exercise can help improve overall fertility by maintaining a healthy weight. Avoid excessive exercise, however, as it can negatively affect sperm quality.

c) Smoking and alcohol consumption: Quitting smoking and limiting alcohol consumption can significantly increase fertility. Both can harm sperm quality and quantity.

d) Stress management: Chronic stress can disrupt hormone levels and sperm production. Using relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation and deep breathing exercises can help reduce stress.

Maintain a healthy weight

Being underweight or overweight can adversely affect male fertility. Maintaining a healthy weight through a healthy diet and exercise is important. Consult with a health

Fertility and Stress: What Every Couple Needs to Know?

Stress is an unavoidable part of modern life, but when you’re trying to conceive, it can feel even more overwhelming. As a fertility specialist, I’ve seen how emotional stress and anxiety can directly and indirectly affect reproductive health. While stress alone may not cause infertility, it can certainly make the journey to parenthood more difficult.

How Stress Affects Fertility?

When the body is under stress, it produces higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that can interfere with the reproductive hormones—such as estrogen, progesterone, and luteinizing hormone (LH)—that regulate ovulation. In women, this may lead to irregular menstrual cycles or missed ovulation, while in men, chronic stress can affect sperm count and motility.

Stress also impacts lifestyle habits—such as sleep, diet, and physical activity—which are all vital for reproductive health. Moreover, couples under prolonged stress may experience relationship strain, reduced intimacy, and emotional burnout.

Effective Coping Strategies

Managing stress doesn’t mean eliminating it entirely—it means learning to respond in healthy, balanced ways. Here are a few proven strategies I recommend to my patients:

• Mind-Body Techniques: Incorporate practices like yoga, meditation, and deep breathing, which are known to reduce stress and

Do Males also have menopause?

Have you ever experienced hot flushes, weight gain, or diminished sexual arousal? Has your spouse observed any of these things as well?

These are only a handful of the signs of male menopause, a relatively unrecognized health issue. We are well aware that women have a fixed ovarian reserve, which over time steadily depletes and causes menopause. Men do not experience menopause, but they nonetheless experience a similar issue as a result of the sharp decline in testosterone. And the term for it is andropause, or simply male menopause. Men experience a variety of changes as they become older, such as hair greying and loss of muscle mass. One of the most apparent changes that occurs in men is a decrease in testosterone levels.

Since there isn't much research on the topic and you don't die from a drop in gonadal hormones, and the hormone withdrawal isn't as severe as it is in women, the topic isn't generally explored. In addition to the drop in hormones, there are frequently additional things at work when men experience this, such as stress at work, stress in marriage, stress in life management, and lifestyle choices.

What precisely is andropause?

Male menopause refers to the decline in testosterone levels in males.

whenever a woman is over 40, when her oestrogen levels start to fall. Certain doctors refer to it as having low testosterone. As you age, it's normal to experience a drop in the production of the male hormone testosterone, yet, it can also occur if you have diabetes.  Age-related low testosterone, also known as late-onset hypogonadism, is a continuous decline in testosterone levels. In contrast to female menopause, which occurs quickly and involves the cessation of ovulation and a decline in hormone production, it is a more progressive menopause.

What are some of the symptoms and signs?

A few symptoms that could follow from this decline are

Choosing a right fertility clinic: what to look for?

During your fertility journey, you may need a bit of extra help getting pregnant, in which case you will have to choose a fertility clinic. However, with so many fertility clinics in India and abroad, how do you decide?

A quick internet search for ‘fertility clinic near me’ can be a starting point, but there is so much more to consider when making such an important decision. The first thing I recommend to do is to make note of all the aspects that are important to you.

Aspects that are important to me in a fertility clinic

An Integrated approach to increase conception chances

Unable to conceive or having difficulty in getting pregnant or difficulty in making your wife pregnant is all known as being diagnosed with infertility. Infertility is very common issue in urban India as lifestyle plays a pivotal role in being infertile. Long working hours, stress relationships, ease to junk food, alcohol consumption, smoking too much, obesity etc all these lifestyle factors contributes highly to infertility. 

Today in this blog, I will share few points on how to boost your fertility naturally or increase your chances of getting pregnant. However it is very important to keep things simple and not become obsessed. 

1. Stress 

First of all address stress from your life. Ask yourself questions like why you are stressed; What are the things making you stress? Etc as stress can affect your reproductive system badly and having problems conceiving can add to existing stress. In women stress can disrupt the ovulation cycle and in men, stress can lower sperm count and raise the number of abnormal sperm. 

2. Physical routine 

Never underestimate the benefits of being physically active or doing exercise. Without overdoing it, exercise not only increases fertility but it is also known to reduce dementia, osteoporosis, anxiety, depression and fatigue as well as improve cardiovascular health and quality of life; Yoga in particular is an excellent stress buster and also keeps you fit. 

3. Well Balanced Diet 

A balanced diet is essential for overall good pre-conceptual health. Eat foods that are high in folic acid, such as broccoli, spinach, kale etc. Take ample amount of Vitamin B12, which is found in beef, soya products and all bran cereal, nuts etc. Take sufficient fruits in your diet which is very beneficial in combating age-related fertility struggles. 

4. Quit or lessen your smoking habit 

Research has found that smoking not only reduced the possibility of getting pregnant it also reduces the chances of fertility

How Smoking effects Male infertility

Smoking cigarettes is one of the principal source of preventable morbidity as well as brevity, has numerous adverse side effects. There is a direct connection between smoking cigarettes and infertility. Smoking cigarettes is connected to a plethora of unfavorable health result, such as heart disease, lung ailment, as well as melanoma of the lungs, kidney, cervix, larynx, bladder, pancreas, including the stomach. 

Semen Analysis and Cigarette 

Smoking Cigarette smoking hurts the varied characteristics of semen evaluation. Mostly tobacco smokers had low semen quantities, sperm numbers, moreover, it was advised that the connection between cigarette smoking and sperm concentration was dependent on dose. It was also found in many researches that adult males who smoked more than 20 cigarettes per day had a 19% diminution in sperm concentration when compared with nonsmokers, even when controlling factors like age, fever, including the time of celibacy and infection in sexual organs. Hence, it was summarized that cigarette smoking led to damage to semen parameters condescendingly.

Cigarette smokers also have low seminal zinc levels than non-smokers, along with a reduction in sperm concentration levels, motility, as well as anatomy. Interestingly, cigarette smokers with normal seminal zinc levels did not

Some common FAQs about infertility and IVF treatment at our centre

Q1 There is a steady rise of infertility in India. Why is infertility on the rise in India?

Ans.  According to a report published in WHO , from the overall population, around 15-20 per cent couples face challenges in having children. There is a slight increased in percentage in the urban areas as compare to rural areas. The reasons for higher cases of infertility in urban areas are busy, hectic lifestyle, and unhealthy eating habits, being more career oriented, less sexually active etc. Ease to junk food, packed food, smoking, drinking, obesity etc. have a negative impact on the fertility in both males and females.

Q2 What are the new types of treatment available for infertility?

Ans. There are many new techniques and treatments in the field of infertility. Some of the technologies are more about eliminating the human effort as well as human errors. Some of them being are:

• IVF, In vitreo fertilization which is the most common way to treat infertility.
• Assisted Laser Hatching: This technology helps the embryo to better attach to the womb.
• I.M.S.I.,  Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) is a technique to be better able to assess the structure of the sperm and exclude the sperm with suspected abnormalities from being injected into the available eggs.

What You Should Know About Male Fertility

When we talk about sperm quality, this means the amount of sperm contained with the

semen, and the motility, or ability to move, of the sperm, which impacts the capacity of the sperm to reach and fertilise the egg. What can men do to help ensure that their sperm are fighting fit? Here are a few areas where some simple health-boosting lifestyle changes could help to put you in the best position to conceive as a couple.

Stress

There’s some conflicting information out there on whether or not stress affects the health of sperm. While it’s not clear whether stress can decrease sperm count, high stress levels are certainly likely to put a relationship under strain, which could in turn make the process of trying to conceive more fraught.

Smoking

We all know that smoking isn’t great for your health in general. But if you’re trying for a baby it could be a good time to kick the habit altogether, as there’s a link between smoking and poorer quality sperm. Quitting smoking also has the effect of improving blood flow,

Infertile: doesn’t mean you’ll never get pregnant

By Dr. Shobha Gupta 

Infertility is clinically defined as not able to get pregnant after one year of having regular sexual intercourse without the usage of birth control measures. On the other hand men are considered as infertile when they’ve been trying to make their wives conceive for one year with no success. So, basically there are plenty of people out there in the world struggling with this label of being infertile. 

Infertile doesn't mean that you're out of options. Today, we are living in the field of technology and there is a solution to most world problems. Today, IVF which is known as In vitreo fertilization is the hope to help women who are childless. 

There are a few factors that can contribute to female infertility like advanced maternal age, defined as having a pregnancy at the age of 35 or over, as you get older, your fertility gradually declines, which is why women who fall into this group may take longer to get pregnant and other conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, having damaged or blocked fallopian tubes that can’t be treated with surgery, and premature ovarian failure (a loss of normal ovarian function before age 40) may also make it harder to get pregnant without reproductive assistance;

Still not Pregnant? Then you should consider these facts

By Dr Shobha Gupta 

You are planning to conceive for long and not getting results. This problem is very common now. I see at least 40 to 50 patients in a day coming to me for their infertility issues. This is because conception is process that calls for more trials before you finally succeed. You should know that there are some medical facts which keep coming on your way of getting pregnant. 

According to ICMR Bulletin it is estimated that globally around 60 to 80 million couples suffer from infertility annually, of which probably between 15 to 20 million are in India alone. 

When everything else fails and you think that the in vitro fertilization or IVF may be the only option for you to opt, but before considering anything know some facts that can hinder your chances of conception: 

1. Abnormal Periods: 

Abnormal or irregular periods is one sign that can point towards a woman’s infertility. A menstrual cycle that is too long (35 days or more) or too short (21 days or less) could indicate problems with ovulation. 

What you can do: Sometimes a healthy diet, exercise and medication can regularise your periods and help you conceive. But first do consult a good doctor who can also prescribes few medicines and tells you the way to modify your lifestyle. 

2. You age and decline in the number of healthy eggs has a direct relationship: 

You are born with a fixed number of eggs. But the number gets declines as you age and so does the health of those eggs. According to The American Society of Reproductive Medicine, even a healthy and fertile 30-year-old woman’s chances of getting pregnant reduces by 20% with each passing month.  

What you can do: Optimize the health of your eggs. To do so help yourself stay healthy, maintain a good optimal weight and give up your vices. Quit smoking and limit your alcohol intake while planning for a baby. Get in touch with a good fertility centre if you need help, and try to complete your family before 35 years of age without delaying the process to avoid future complications. In case you want to delay pregnancy and want to keep your eggs in good health till conception, you should probably try freezing your eggs for future use. 

3. Your partner might have a problem/ Male infertility: 

Remember your partner’s health plays a significant role in conception after yours. Male infertility is responsible for up to one-third of infertility cases. If your partner is overweight, an alcoholic or a smoker, it could be affecting your chances of getting pregnant. An infection or inflammation of the prostate glands might also stand to be a probable cause if you are not getting pregnant. 

What you can do: Talk to your partner and be open about it but

Boost up your fertility at 40+ with these tips

By Dr Shobha Gupta 

According the reports by National Statistics Bureau , people have been increasingly delaying childbearing until later life, resulting in rising the number of infertility cases. The main reason of delaying chlid bearing would be the increasing importance of a career and the rising costs of child rearing.

It is a proven fact that as the body ages, getting pregnant can be more challenging as compare to people in their teens and twenties. Many women considering pregnancy in their 40s will then look to IVF treatment as their last resort. In my opinion before jumping to IVF treatment; there are lifestyle choices that every woman needs to consider to improve her fertility and likelihood of having a healthy baby. 

1. Get sexually active 

Have sex at least every other day during your fertile window. Understanding your own menstrual cycle (which you can do here) is probably one of the most important things you can do, studies show you're most likely to get pregnant if you have sex within a day or so of ovulation. Ovulation usually happens about 14 days after the first day of your last period. 

2. Eat good 

Include nuts, vegetables and pulses in your diet for healthy fibre and limit sugar content. Being overweight can seriously affect your chances of conceiving so, maintaining a healthy weight, and and cutting out the processed foods should assist both your chances of conceiving and the potential health of the foetus. 

3. Give yourself a pre natal vitamin boost 

Vitamin D and Folic acid are both recommended by the NHS to encourage the healthy development of the foetus and in particular its neural pathways. 

4. Be aware of changes in your body 

If you notice symptoms like sudden weight gain or

It’s not you but it’s him – the cause behind your infertility

By Dr. Shobha Gupta 

I have came across many cases and seen that it comes as a shock to most men when they find out that it's because of their health issues they can’t make their wives pregnant. It is a kind of bitter pill to swallow for them when they get to know about it. If you can’t make your wife pregnant then you are suffering from male infertility. 

In most infertility cases we cannot ignore male factors as there is a very big myth that infertility is woman’s problem. We cannot rule out without doing tests of male partner too. It is the time to shift the spotlight away from women and their biological clocks and onto men. Male fertility is one of the few residual taboos as men just don't want to talk about infertility openly it could hit their masculinity. On the other hand women can talk about their infertility with their friends they can pour out their heart openly to doctors, family or friends but men cannot; not even with their close friends. 

Let’s figure out what are the all sorts of reasons behind male fertility: 

Low sperm count: Studies conducted in the past has shown the considerable results that men who use laptops on their laps for a prolonged time can have a reduced sperm count as laptops can cause scrotal hyperthermia (elevated testicle temperature) which can considerably affect the quality of sperm.  Scrotal temperature rose with the working and non-working computers. 

Poor diet patterns: If you don’t take sufficient amount of essential nutrients and drinks too much alcohol then it could also be a reason for your infertility as it can lower testosterone levels, cause erectile dysfunction and decrease sperm production. Liver disease caused by excessive drinking also may lead to fertility problems. 

Wearing too tight pants: In the name of fashion people don't realize that wearing tight trousers or skinny jeans could seriously damage one's health. It can cut off circulation, cause nerve damage, swelling of the ankles and feet and even fertility problems. Tight pants or skinny jeans do in fact damage the testicles, even cause low sperm count and infertility in men. It causes infertility problems in men by overheating of the crotch area,

Keep your Mobile phones out of your pocket

By Dr. Shobha Gupta 

We are living in the era of high end smart phones. There is a considerable amount of time that people spend on their phones instead of doing anything else. But many people does not know that men who carry their mobile phone in their pocket could be involuntarily destroying their sperm. 

Yes, you heard it right keeping mobile phones in your trouser’s or jeans pocket could hamper your fertility especially in men. There is also a study done in Israel where the researchers has found that almost half of the men (47%) who kept their phones in their front trouser pocket had low sperm levels, compared to 11% of the general population. The study also revealed that men who chatted on the phone for more than an hour each day were twice as likely to have low sperm quality as those who spoke on their mobile for less than one hour per day. 

Not only keeping the mobile phones in pants but speaking on the phone while charging is also linked to lower sperm counts. If your sperm levels are

There is a biological clock for men too

By Dr. Shobha Gupta 

As we all know that age factor is directly associated with decreasing fertility in women; their eggs grow old. But age does affect the fertility level in men too. Yes, you heard it right, age affects men too. After the age of 30, there is a drop in testosterone of 1% per year. Testosterone is the energy, the hormone that you need to make good-quality sperm. It’s not just women who have to worry about their ticking reproductive clock. Men's sperm quality seems to decline after the age of 35. The older a man is the more his sperm cells are dived, and the more divisions present, the more there is a chance for an abnormality to occur. 

Studies have shown that age of male is directly associated with a decline in semen volume, sperm motility, and sperm morphology. Many studies have claimed that pregnancy rates decrease between 23% to 38% in comparisons between men under 30 and men over 50. Sperm count declines with age, with men aged 50–80 years producing sperm at an

Hepatitis links to male infertility

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

World Hepatitis Day falls on 28 July 2016 and the theme given by World Health Organization for 2016 is “Know Hepatitis - Act Now”  

Hepatitis as we all know is the inflammation of the liver and prove to be deadly in the long run if ignored. According to the World Health Organization, there are 400 million people worldwide who are living with Hepatitis B or C. Globally, every year 1.4 million people die from viral hepatitis. There are five viruses that can cause hepatitis - A, B, C, D and E. Out of these, hepatitis A, B & C cause over 90% of the diagnosed cases of the disease. While viral hepatitis can be acute or chronic, hepatitis A and E do not cause chronic illness. Hepatitis B and C are the most common disease viruses and can cause chronic illness.  According to WHO Viral hepatitis affects 400 million people globally and, given the size of the epidemic, anyone and everyone can be at risk.  

Let’s look at the risk factors hepatitis has brought:  

You are at the risk of infertility if you are found with Hepatitis Virus. The hepatitis virus negatively impacts spermatogenesis in males thereby significantly lowering sperm count, its motility, viability and morphology. We can say that Hepatitis contributes to male infertility majorly. However, hepatitis has no effect on the normal functioning

Causes of male infertility

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

Many a time’s infertility is considered as female’s problem .This is the most prevalent of all myths having to do with infertility, and if a couple is unable to have a child, the woman is thought to be "barren." In fact, according to Resolve, a national infertility advocacy organization in the USA, men and women are about equally responsible when it comes to infertility.  In reality, 40% of infertility is due to female factors, 40% due to male factors and 20% due to both but let’s have a look at some causes of male infertility too:

1. Alcohol consumption: Drinking alcohol can lower testosterone levels, cause erectile dysfunction and decrease sperm production. Liver disease caused by excessive drinking also may lead to fertility problems.
2. Occupation or job: There are certain occupations can increase your risk of infertility, including those associated with desk jobs or extended use of computers or video display monitors, shift work, and work-related stress. Working on laptops while placing them on your laps is hugely associated with infertility in men as the heat caused by them often reduced sperm motility and sperm DNA fragmentation
3. Tobacco or smoking: Men who smoke may have a lower sperm count than do those who don’t smoke. Secondhand smoke also may affect male fertility. Nicotine and other harmful chemicals in cigarettes interfere with the body’s ability to produce healthy sperm count.
4. Wearing too-tight trousers or skinny jeans: Yes wearing tight inner wears or jeans could seriously damage your health. It can cut off circulation and cause nerve damage, swelling of the ankles and feet and fertility problems. Tight pants or skinny jeans do in fact damage the testicles; even low sperm count and can cause infertility in men. But that’s not all. Wearing skinny jeans is associated with many negative consequences

WORLD DIABETES DAY: Diabetic..? You cannot become a father

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

November 14 observed as World Diabetes day. Diabetes as we all know is a root problem of many other diseases. Diabetes in a lay men’s language is a chronic medical problem in which a person is suffering from abnormally high levels of sugar or glucose in the blood. A person suffering from diabetes has refrain from sugar or glucose for the rest of his life.

Today, millions of people are suffering due to diabetes. In the last 4 years percentage of diabetes sufferers has gone up by 30 percent. According to a recent report by IDF- International Diabetes Federation, India continues to be the “diabetes capital” of the world, and by 2030, nearly 9 per cent of the country’s population is likely to be affected from this disease. India accounts for the largest number of people i.e. 50.8 million suffering from diabetes in the world.

This disease is actually dangerous as it gives rise to many other diseases as well in your body. One of them would be infertility; Diabetes can directly affect the

Skinny jeans a risky affair

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

A recent case in published in the British specialist publication, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry revealed that a 35-year-old woman from Australia had to be admitted to a hospital as she was unable to walk or move her toes and ankles properly, and found her legs severely swollen due to her tight jeans. The reason being, she had spent hours sitting on her haunches and worked around, while wearing skinny jeans. The woman, whose calves had ballooned, developed what is known as the Compartment Syndrome — “a painful and potentially life-threatening serious condition caused by bleeding or swelling within an enclosed bundle of muscles — in this case, the calves”, said the report. The jeans had to be cut and the woman was put on intravenous drip and was able to walk, unaided, only after four days. 

There are various risks associated with wearing too-tight trousers or skinny jeans. It could seriously damage your health. It can cut off circulation and cause nerve damage, swelling of the ankles and feet and fertility problems. 

Tight pants or skinny jeans do in fact damage the testicles; even low sperm count and can cause infertility in men. But that’s not all. Wearing skinny jeans is

Some common facts about male infertility

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

Infertility is a complex and often misunderstood condition, which is why there's so much confusion surrounding it. Infertility in males is also very common these days. Let’s have a look at some facts about male infertility: 

1. Alcohol consumption: Drinking alcohol can lower testosterone levels, cause erectile dysfunction and decrease sperm production. Liver disease caused by excessive drinking also may lead to fertility problems.

2. Occupation or job: There are certain occupations can increase your risk of infertility, including those associated with desk jobs or extended use of computers or video display monitors, shift work, and work-related stress.

3. Tobacco or smoking: Men who smoke may have a lower sperm count than do those who don't smoke. Secondhand smoke also may affect male fertility.

4. Hormonal imbalances: Low thyroid hormone levels can cause poor semen quality, poor testicular function and may disturb libido.  May be caused by a diet high