THE BARREN MAN – INTRODUCTION
In an over-populated world, it may come as a surprise to learn that between 10 and 15 per cent of couples who desire to have a child are unable to do so. They are barren, sterile, or infertile. The terms are interchangeable.
Until about thirty years ago, the fault was thought to be due to the woman’s inability to conceive. If a man could obtain an erection and could ejaculate within the woman’s vagina, it was believed that he could not be sterile. It is now known that this belief was wrong. In most investigations of infertility, the man is at fault in nearly one-third of cases. Although he can get an erection and can ejaculate, he has few or no spermatozoa in his seminal fluid. The absence of sperm obviously prevents him having children, although his sexuality is not affected.
A fertile man ejaculates between 200 and 500 million sperms each time he comes. These are formed in a very complex way in small blind ‘nests’ in his testicles. The blind pockets are lined by cells from which the sperms develop. The cells are pushed inwards into the centre of the nests as new cells are formed, so that the lining of the nest is several cells deep. And each layer of cells is made up of spermatozoa in various stages of development. In the nests the sperms undergo at least twelve phases of maturation until they are discharged into the cavity of the nest. This takes about 74 days. The cavities of the many nests join together to form tiny ducts, or tubes, along which the spermatozoa are pushed by the movement of tiny ‘hairs’ on the inner surface of the cells which line the ducts, because at this stage they have no movement of their own. The process goes on continuously: 50,000 or more sperms being produced each minute.
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Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health