Bernadette BoasExecutive Leadership Coach, Trainer and Speaker, Ball of Fire Coaching · Become the Leader Everyone Wants to Follow and No One Can Overlook.

Uncovering the Silent 50/50 Role Men Play in Fertility

5 Feb 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:07

In this talk, the speaker highlights how fertility discussions and clinical focus are disproportionately centered on women, despite data showing that male factors account for roughly 40% of infertility cases, mirroring the female contribution and together representing a 50/50 split when embryonic issues are excluded. The speaker argues that this gender bias leaves men feeling unsupported and helpless, especially when they seek actionable advice from doctors and receive dismissive responses. The talk also reveals that male factors are implicated in about half of miscarriage cases, a fact often overlooked, leading women to self‑blame. By exposing these gaps, the speaker calls for a shift in the fertility narrative to actively include male health optimization and support, emphasizing that both partners should be engaged in the journey to conceive and maintain a pregnancy.

Chapters

It's interesting because I think fertility, as you, as you very correctly pointed out, is, is very much narrowed and focused on women when it shouldn't be. Because if we look at what it takes to create a baby, the reasons for infertility are typically 40% male factor, 40% female factor, and 20% embryonic factor, which tells us that, you know, when we're really looking at the man and woman component of that equation, it's a 50/50. And So looking at what that actually means and all of the attention, which can be beneficial and also negative, going only towards the woman leaves the man often very unsupported in the process, right? And also feeling very helpless about the entire situation because most men who love their partner and they want to reproduce with their partner because it's their partner, because they envision that woman or person as the, the person for them and the person they want to create family and raise a family with, right? So for them, they feel like, well, what is it that I can do? And often men will go to an appointment with their partners and will ask the doctor, what is it that I can do to improve the situation? And they literally get the most, like, lackluster answer of, oh no, there's nothing you can do, you just need to provide your sample and, you know, it's fine. It's like, well, actually there is so much a man can do to optimize the couple's chance to have a baby, whether we're talking about inability to conceive or inability to keep a pregnancy to term. Because with miscarriages, what a lot of people don't realize is that 50% of the reasons to why miscarriages happen is because of male factor. And so, yeah, so, you know, a lot of times a woman will have a miscarriage and, and she'll be blaming herself, thinking, oh my God, what did I do? What should I have done? And, you know, whilst the conversation really needs to shift to a whole different direction