Study Reveals Nearly 60% Drop in Male Fertility Since 1970 in the U.S., Europe and Australia

Study Reveals Nearly 60% Drop in Male Fertility Since 1970 in the U.S., Europe and Australia

(Link): Sperm count in Western men plunges to record low as scientists blame chemicals in everyday products for crisis

(Link):  Huge drop in sperm count could lead to human EXTINCTION: Study reveals 60% drop in fertility since 1970 – driven by the unhealthy Western lifestyle

July 25, 2017

Humans could face extinction if sperm counts continue to drop as fast as they have done in the last four decades in Western countries, a study warns.

Researchers claim the Western lifestyle has more than halved the sperm count of men in the US, Europe and Australia since the 1970s in a new study published by Human Reproduction Update.

WHO: Single People Who Struggle to Find A Partner To Be Considered “Infertile”

WHO: Single People Who Struggle to Find A Partner To Be Considered “Infertile”

I’m taken aback by some of the cranky comments by people who disagree with this decision. Take for example this (source):

Josephine Quintavalle, from Comment on Reproductive Ethics added: “This absurd nonsense is not simply re-defining infertility but completely side-lining the biological process and significance of natural intercourse between a man and a woman.

Well, excuse the hell out of me, Ms. Quintavalle, but some of us find ourselves single by circumstance – we had hoped to be married in our 20s or 30s but just could not find the right guy. I cannot get pregnant now because I have no husband to have sex with to get pregnant, by, HELLO.

You’re saying women like me shouldn’t be able to get help we need or want in having a kid of our own, if that is what we want (I never cared if I had one myself or not, but some women really want one). There is just no sympathy from some people for the circumstances other people find themselves in in life. I didn’t plan on turning out single well into my 40s, lady.

I don’t think that adult singleness should be thought of in a derogatory fashion as a “disability” (God knows we get enough of that condescending attitude from churches as it is), but I don’t see anything wrong with it pertaining to allowing singles who want to have  kid.

I’m also seeing one or two commentators who assume that single adults are more “selfish” than married couples, which is untrue and is (Link): the reverse!

(Link):   People Who Can’t Find Sex Partners Should Be Classified as ‘Disabled,’ Says World Health Organization

(Link):  Being Single Is Now a Disability, According to the World Health Organization

By Rhett Jones

For the WHO’s Dr. David Adamson, one of the authors of the new standards, this move is about creating medical equality. He says, “(Link): The definition of infertility is now written in such a way that it includes the rights of all individuals to have a family, and that includes single men, single women, gay men, gay women.”

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

(Link): With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

The hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness characteristic of menopause may no longer also signal the end of a woman’s fertility thanks to a blood treatment used to heal wounds.

Presenting their findings at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting in Helsinki, Finland, this month, researchers in Greece said they were able to reverse menopause in roughly 30 women, including one who entered menopause at 40 but five years later menstruated again, reports (Link): New Scientist.

Facebook’s motherhood challenge makes me want to punch my computer screen by F. Everett

Facebook’s motherhood challenge makes me want to punch my computer screen by F. Everett

I am friends with people on Facebook who have told me in private that their mother friends – one lady is Facebook friends with a sister of hers who has three kids – are actually terrible parents in real life.

Yet, these same terrible mothers who blather on about how wonderful their children are when they are on Facebook, who post scads of posts of their smiling kids, yell and scream at the kids in real life – or neglect them.

Remember that every time you see posts by parents on Facebook, with their sweet family snaps, who are bragging about their children. They are often times selectively editing their social media to present a glossy, happy version of their life that may not be real most of the time.

(Link):  Facebook’s motherhood challenge makes me want to punch my computer screen by F. Everett

(Link): Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

• Of course it’s meant to be a bit of fun, but this smug club fetishises motherhood, and creates a new way to measure women and find them wanting
• There are certain phrases that make my heart sink. After “Can I be really honest?” and “Mind if I join you, ladies?” the latest to engender a sense of creeping misery must surely be (Link):“Facebook motherhood challenge”.Of uncertain origin, this viral “challenge” demands that mothers post a series of pictures that make them “proud to be a mum” and then tag other women who they think are “great mothers”.
• Many of my friends have done this, bouncily posting shots of themselves with interchangeable babies, all of whom look like glow-worms in padded snowsuits, and tagging whole lists of other “awesome mums” inviting them to do the same.
• And while I fully understand that they have no intention of hurting anyone, that they are simply happy to have their wonderful children, #blessed, #lovinglife and so on, I still want to punch the screen of my computer in whenever a new one pops up.
•  The most offensive aspect of this is the idea that it’s a “challenge” at all.
• A challenge is coping with grief when you wish you were dead, or pushing your mind and body to the limit in a feat of superhuman endurance. It’s not posting a few snaps of your toddler and waiting for your friends to type “aw gorgeous hun xxx” underneath. And it’s unclear whether the challenge in question is to prove what a great mother you are, or merely to challenge your friends to prove that they are too.
•  This insidious idea of (Link): motherhood as a beatific vocational calling began with the Virgin Mary, and reached its peak with the Victorian notion of “the angel of the hearth”, when mothers who didn’t have to work, and had nannies and housekeepers and nursery maids rushing about looking after their children, were depicted as celestial beings radiating goodness, their sole purpose on Earth to gather little children to their rustling taffeta bosoms and gently instruct them.

A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

I may have blogged on this before. I apologize if this is a repeat. I’m pretty sure I already read this, or something very similar to it, about a month ago, and I may have blogged on this before.

(Link): A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

Excerpts (I have a few comments to make below this long series of excerpts):

We obsess over fertility as if women are slot machines who simply need to be primed and pumped at the optimal socially acceptable moment for a baby to shoot out like a prize

When Michigan-based writer Emily Bingham took to her Facebook page to vent her frustration at intrusive baby questions, she probably expected a few of her friends to share or “like” her post. Accompanied by an ultrasound photo she had found online, (Link): her post implored:

Before you ask the young married couple that has been together for seemingly forever when they are finally gonna start a family … before you ask the parents of an only-child toddler when a Little Brother or Little Sister will be in the works … before you ask a single thirtysomething if/when s/he plans on having children because, you know, clock’s ticking … just stop.

Please stop.

You don’t know who is struggling with infertility or grieving a miscarriage or dealing with health issues.

You don’t know who is having relationship problems or is under a lot of stress or the timing just isn’t right. You don’t know who is on the fence about having kids or having more kids.

You don’t know who has decided it’s not for them right now, or not for them ever. You don’t know how your seemingly innocent question might cause someone grief, pain, stress or frustration.

But instead of reaching a few dozen of her friends, Bingham’s post went viral, shared by more than 77,000 people and liked by more than 42,000. It’s not surprising that Bingham’s message struck such a chord.