How many it is necessary to not drink before conception to the man?

If you gather the opinions of outsiders about how much you do not drink to a man before conception, the resulting picture will be quite contradictory. Some are sure that once the process of spermatogenesis - that is, the appearance and development of new spermatozoa - lasts 73-75 days, then the same and it is necessary to abstain from alcohol. Others believe that the story of the drunken conception, at least, greatly exaggerated, if already formed sperm penetrated into the egg, the whole week, which runs from conception to implantation, and the mother and father can drink anything. Who is right? Let's try to find the middle ground.

Brief about

spermatogenesis Unlike eggs, the beginnings of which are formed by the birth of a girl( a paradox: on the health of your child through the female line affects not only the conditions of the pregnancy of his mother, as the life of his grandmother), sperm cells begin to be produced during puberty. Daily in the male body approximately 250 million spermatozoa are formed. This process occurs in the convoluted tubules of the testicles. For, let's say, two and a half months, rounded spermatogonia - cells that form sperm - several times divided, as a result of a single spermatogonia, which has a double set of chromosomes obtained 4 spermatids with haploid( single) set of chromosomes. Further within a month spermatids ripen, form a head and "grow" a flagella, turning in high-grade spermatozoons.

Read more: The stages of spermatogenesis

effects of alcohol

Chronic abuse of alcohol causes changes in the tissue of the eggs. Exploring the state of the reproductive system of men who died from acute alcohol intoxication, doctors have found that regardless of age, in the testes completely absent spermatogenesis, and testicular tissue itself was edematous and congested - that is, had signs of acute inflammation.

During the first 5 years of excessive consumption of alcohol, the walls of the seminiferous tubules germinate with a connective tissue, the number of spermatids decreases, the spermatogenesis index decreases. During the next 5 years, a part of the seminiferous tubules is fibrotic( "overgrowths"), the number of cells producing spermatozoa decreases. In alcohol abusers for more than 10 years, spermatogenesis almost completely ceases.

Thus, with chronic alcoholism, wondering how much to drink before conception is practically meaningless: structural changes in the tissue of the testicles themselves are irreversible.

What is meant by "abuse"?

According to the latest standards of the WHO, the average man can drink a day with 20 ml of alcohol in terms of pure alcohol( 50 g of vodka) , or 140 ml for a week, provided that at least two days a week, he must be absolutely sober(Previously these rates were twice as large).Proceeding from this, it turns out that "to think for three" once a week from the point of view of the world health organization is not crime. A small dose of alcohol increases the testosterone content in the blood by 20%( but regular excessive consumption of alcohol, on the contrary, reduces the production of testosterone, which is why it is explained slightly above).

Read on: How to increase the production of testosterone in natural ways.

On the other hand, developing these standards, the researchers studied the statistics of changes in the general state of health: the cardiovascular system, liver, kidneys. If we talk about fertility, the picture changes. Ethanol concentrates not only in the brain tissues, but also in the testicles, the secretion of the prostate, and, consequently, in the sperm, damaging the spermatozoa.

So, foreign researchers have found that the use of a man more than 4 "drinks" a week for a month before IVF reduces the probability of successful fertilization by 48% and the probability of a full healthy child growing by 28%."Drink" means 14 g of pure alcohol, that is, a standard portion of an alcoholic beverage: half a liter of beer, a glass of wine or a stack of strong alcohol.

One of the possible reasons for this is called DNA fragmentation of sperm cells: when a directly hereditary apparatus is damaged in a morphologically normal germ cell - the DNA structure. These disorders can also occur in healthy fertile men - but not more than 15% of the cells. In case of impaired fertility, the percentage of spermatozoa with fragmented DNA exceeds 30%.Such changes not only prevent conception, but also increase the risk of miscarriage. Thus, in the study of couples suffering from habitual miscarriage, it was found that the level of fragmentation of sperm DNA in men in such pairs averaged 43.3%.While in the control group( fertile couples) it was 16.7%.

Of course, the level of fragmentation of sperm DNA is affected not only by alcohol, but also by factors such as stress, the age of parents, environmental factors. But if there is an opportunity to eliminate at least one cause of possible problems with conception and the development of pregnancy, it would be logical to take this opportunity.

Summarizing

Healthy fertile men do not need to abstain from alcohol before conception - provided that alcohol is consumed no more often 4 times a week in small quantities( a glass of beer, a glass of wine, a glass of strong drink).

In case of more frequent use of alcohol by a man "in ordinary life," it is necessary to abstain from it for at least one cycle of spermatogenesis before the planned conception, that is, for 75 days.

If a couple has difficulty with conception, especially if auxiliary reproductive procedures are used( IVF, ICSI, and so on), a man should completely give up alcohol for at least a month, and ideally for 75 days, during which the formation andMaturation of spermatozoa.

Read the continuation of the article: The main aspects of preparing a man for conception.

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