Melis­sa Doughty

Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan is un­able to give de­fin­i­tive fig­ures and rea­sons for the re­port­ed rise in male in­fer­til­i­ty but con­firms there has been a de­crease in the na­tion­al birthrate. Khan, in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said ac­cord­ing to the 2012 cen­sus there has been a de­crease in the na­tion­al birth rate which he at­trib­ut­es to peo­ple hav­ing small­er fam­i­lies.

Khan's com­ments come on the heels of sta­tis­tics re­vealed by the T&T IVF & Fer­til­i­ty Cen­tre which said 34 per cent of T&T's males have a low sperm count. The 2009-2011 study done by the lo­cal fer­til­i­ty clin­ic, head­ed by med­ical di­rec­tor Cather­ine Minto-Bain and Prof Samuel Ram­se­wak, test­ed 663 sperm sam­ples and found the lo­cal preva­lence of azoosper­mia (ab­sence of live sperm) to be twice that of in­ter­na­tion­al fig­ures. Khan said lo­cal cou­ples had seen both ends of the fer­til­i­ty con­tin­u­um, with some cou­ples ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­fer­til­i­ty and oth­ers be­ing "over-fer­tile." An­na Hors­ford, nurse man­ag­er of the Bar­ba­dos Fer­til­i­ty Cen­tre, said male in­fer­til­i­ty was a Caribbean-wide prob­lem.

She said in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day that while she could not cor­rob­o­rate the T&T IVF & Fer­til­i­ty Cen­tre's fig­ures on male in­fer­til­i­ty, from the clin­ic's ex­pe­ri­ence in deal­ing with men from Guyana, Ja­maica, T&T and oth­er Caribbean coun­tries, male in­fer­til­i­ty was iden­ti­fied as a prob­lem in the Caribbean. Al­though she said there was no spe­cif­ic cause, she iden­ti­fied en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors which kept the tes­ti­cles warm as a pos­si­ble con­trib­u­tor. She al­so cit­ed ra­di­a­tion from cell­phones and plas­tic wa­ter bot­tles con­tain­ing tox­ins, and habits such as smok­ing and high al­co­hol con­sump­tion. But Hors­ford stressed, "There is no one way to pin­point what caus­es male in­fer­til­i­ty."

Asked what men could do to ad­dress or min­imise the prob­lem, Hors­ford said there was noth­ing con­crete that could be done, but sug­gest­ed that men "do every­thing in mod­er­a­tion." "If you drink too much, cut back. It is about keep­ing it in mod­er­a­tion." She al­so sug­gest­ed men who think they might have a prob­lem should con­sult a fer­til­i­ty spe­cial­ist. Minto-Bain cor­rob­o­rat­ed that there is no di­rect causal link for male in­fer­til­i­ty or a low sperm count and al­so sug­gest­ed that men should gen­er­al­ly lead healthy lifestyles in or­der to in­crease their chances of be­ing fer­tile. Minto-Bain sug­gest­ed men should eat well, take a mul­ti­vi­t­a­min, and re­duce smok­ing and drink­ing. She al­so added med­ical ad­vice should be sought.