Is penis related to pregnancy?

Drake writes, "What is the effect of size while making love?  Will I be able to make my wife pregnant even if the size is very small?"

Size and pleasure

Despite all the myth and misinformation, it is not the size that matters but what you do with its and all other body parts when it comes to satisfying a woman.  I know women who have told me that men with very tiny organs gave them great orgasms and men with huge ones did not know what to do with it.  Generally speaking even the smallest size can please a woman.  So go out there and do what you can with it and your hands, mouth and tongue and stop fretting about the size, the myth for which has been created by quacks, crooks, and spammers to sell you snake oil.

Size and pregnancy

The same is true for making babies.  If the woman is fertile and healthy and you can engage in normal lovemaking, she should get pregnant.  Having said that, if you have been trying to make your wife pregnant for 12 months and have not succeeded, then it is time to meet with a fertility specialist.  It may have nothing to do with your organ size but there are so many other things inside a woman's body that could not be working normally.  For men, it is not the size that is important for pregnancy, but sperm count, sperm quality and motility that are important and these can be checked with a simple test.

Celine Dion pregnancy from frozen embryo

As women delay marriage and pregnancy, they are finding out that their fertility goes down rapidly in late 30s and then in their 40s it is nearly impossible to deliver a healthy child naturally. At that point, a woman has to explore options like IUI, IVF, donor eggs or surrogate mother (as Ricky Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Clay Aiken and Marisssa Jaret Winokur did).

Céline Dion exercised another great option: freezing your eggs, or if you are already in a relationship and know who will be the father, frozen embryos. That way both the egg and the sperm comes from young, healthy parents and can be implanted into a woman's uterus well into her late 40s (though I often doubt the wisdom having children so late into one's life).

DNA damage in sperm

When a couple is unable to become parents, it is a good idea to do some tests to detect fertility problems. While women over 40 have a difficult time getting pregnant due to advanced age, men may often be the ones to be responsible for infertility because of low sperm count or poor sperm quality.

Now, for any couple trying to make a baby, it is common sense to be very active in the bedroom (the more you do it the more the chances of a good sperm hitting an egg), now there is scientific research done by Dr David Greening of Sydney IVF that daily ejaculation for a week cut the amount of DNA damage seen in sperm samples.

I am sure it will make a lot of men very happy, but on a more serious note, fresher semen also showed higher motility even with a drop in sperm count. So ladies, get ready for a bed workout every night.

Mobile phone dangers for sperm

I had reported earlier that men who use cell phones may experience lower sperm quality. It appears that more evidence is coming that cell phone radiation may do a lot of harm to the reproductive organs.

In another study conducted by the Cleveland Clinic, they have found that simply keeping a mobile phone turned on and kept in your pants pocket may lead to excessive damage to sperm production.

Obviously, the cell phone companies are not even discussing this because it will hurt their business, but till the debate is settled, here is a word of advice for all those couples trying to get pregnant: keep your cell phone away from your body. You can always put it in your handbag or on your desk while you are working but definitely several feet away from your body to the extent possible. It is also possible to use one of those bluetooth headsets that minimize radiation.

Older fathers responsible for bipolar disorder in children

If you recall, previously I wrote about poor sperm quality and infertility in men, in many cases due to advanced age. Many couples wrongly assume that it is difficult for a woman to get pregnant after 40 but men can continue to procreate well into their 60s and 70s without any consequences.

New research from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm says that "Children whose father was 55 years old or more (at the time of conception) run about a 37-percent greater risk of suffering from (bipolar disorder) than children whose fathers were in their 20s," according to lead researcher Emma Frans. In case you do not know what bipolar disorder is, it is enough to understand that these individuals go through severe mood changes that can make them severely depressed to the point of becoming maniacs and committing suicide. They are also more likely to suffer from schizophrenia and autism.

The reason is the same as it is for women: degradation of DNA in sperms.

So what does it mean?

A couple with any partner being of advanced age really has to think if they want to bring a child into the world. Of course, genetic testing is helpful, but if one partner is really old, it is best to consider adoption.

Do fertility treatments work?

When a woman is unable to get pregnant particularly after she is 40, it is natural for the couple to get desperate. That is when the greedy fertility treatment industry starts to exploit them. While many such couples may be able to pay for the outrageously expensive assisted reproductive therapy (ART) with the help of their insurance company (it is mandated by law in those cases), others will have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars on their own, often through financing with high interest rates.

Most people borrow this money and can get stuck in a cycle of debt for decades or even declare bankruptcy, often without becoming parents.

The so-called fertility doctors (and a whole industry that now includes acupuncturists, yoga teachers, natural medicine doctors, personal consultants, etc.) are in great position to exploit the desperate people. If the couple gets even technically pregnant, they take all the credit, and keep pushing them to try again (often more money, though, to trap them they will give some discounts not available to first-time patients).

And if you do not get pregnant, then they put all the blame on you. "You are too old, your eggs are no good, your husband has low sperm count, your husband has low sperm motility, etc.," they say.

Well, if you are one of those people that are desperate to have your own child but are unable to get pregnant, here is a piece of news that may save you tens of thousands of dollars.

According to research published in the British Medical Journal, use of drugs like Clomid and artificial insemination is no more useful than trying to get pregnant naturally. These fertility drugs also have serious side effects, chances of multiple babies is high (it may appear like great news to have more than one baby when you struggled to have just one, but these pregnancies are complicated with risk of death for both the babies and mother and higher possibility of development complications in children) and long-term effects on a woman's body, particularly menopause, are not yet known.

I can understand why it is tempting to undergo treatment. You feel that you are doing something and trying really hard, but trust me, the best way to try really hard is to hole up with your spouse in your bedroom.

So are IUI and IVF worthwhile?

No. They only make sense when natural pregnancy is impossible, for example, when using donor eggs or sperms or using a surrogate mother or when the fallopian tubes are blocked.

Poor sperm quality

Right now if you do not know that being fat is bad, you are either a moron or living under a stone. This is not the place to discuss all the complications associated with being overweight, but I want to highlight one major problem for men who want to make a baby but are fat. It is widely documented that pregnancy for obese women is a huge risk and fertility of overweight women is much lower than that of physically fit ladies.

New research from University of Aberdeen by Ghiyath Shayeb says that obese men have lower sperm count than normal-weight men, their sperms are also of poor quality and could have damaged DNA raising the risk of birth abnormalities. In other words their sperms do not move fast and far enough, and are therefore, incapable of fertilization, and are thus a major cause of infertility in men.

The net result is that unless the woman is very healthy and could compensate for a man's sperm problems, it is best that obese people first get on a weight loss program before considering to become parents.

Cell phones lower sperm count

For a woman trying to get pregnant and having difficulty conceiving, there are several reasons that can hurt her: age, obesity, and other complications with the reproductive system.

But the male in her life may also be contributing to not conceiving.

Latest research conducted by Cleveland Clinic has found that men who have cell phones glued to their years may have lower quality sperm -- lower sperm count and higher percentage of abnormal sperms. BTW, you can raise sperm count by avoiding soy foods.

By the way, it has long been suspected that mobile phones cause cancer but no firm evidence has been presented by either side.