There are many occasions when we have talked about how in today’s society the age at which one becomes a father is being delayed more and more. There are many studies on this matter and how the age of women influences different aspects. From obstetrics to perinatal, through gestational. But, until now, little was known about the influence of paternal age in this regard.
Study on the influence of paternal age
The aforementioned context is the one that has given rise to two studies presented at the current edition of the Congress of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). Under the headings “Paternal age does not affect obstetric and perinatal outcomes in IVF or ICSI cycles with autologous oocytes” and “Paternal age is significantly related with the type of delivery and the sex of the newborn in IVF or ICSI cycles with donated oocytes”, with the leadership of Dr. Ana Navarro, researcher at the IVI Foundation, and the supervision of the Doctor Nicholas Garrido, director of the IVI Foundation. The objective of both works is to verify if the semen of men with advanced paternal age negatively influences the obstetric health of women during pregnancy, in addition to the type of delivery and the health of the newborn. In addition to demonstrating whether, if these aspects are affected, to what degree of influence.
“To do this, we have taken into account a series of pregnancy and perinatal health indicators such as gestational diabetes, hypertension, the weight of the child, the type of delivery, head circumference or admission to the ICU after birth, giving as a result that paternal age does not affect obstetric and perinatal results in assisted reproduction treatments with own oocytes. At this point, and despite the fact that several studies suggest the threshold to consider paternal age ‘advanced’ at 40 years, we believe it is convenient to review this limit according to current results”comments Dr. Garrido.
Is there loss in quality due to advanced paternal age?
The aforementioned work studies the possible loss of semen quality or a decrease in male fertility due to age. In addition to whether this would affect obstetric and perinatal outcomes. But, after the adjusted analysis taking into account maternal age -in addition to other variables-, the results do not reflect anything statistically significant in the case of treatments with own oocytes.
“One of the reasons that can cause this difference between men and women is purely biological: in men, spermatogenesis takes place constantly, every day and at all times and, therefore, new cells are generated. On the contrary, the woman has the follicles in her ovaries since she is even inside the womb of her own mother. I mean, they’ve been with her all their lives. And, obviously, this influences the characteristics of fertilization and everything that entails a posteriori, since the spermatozoa are not as old as the ovules when trying to fertilize them”explains Dr. Navarro.
Study of the influence of paternal age with donated oocytes
On the other hand, the fact of having investigated egg donation treatments allows us to standardize the female factor. This is because they are similar profiles in terms of age, without a history of health problems, etc. In this case, after analyzing pregnancies with donor oocytes, a slight variation was determined in the type of cesarean delivery and the sex of the live newborn. This difference remained significant after adjusted analysis. Despite this, the researchers do not observe anything clinically relevant, since the type of cesarean delivery, for example, is a variable that affects personal or medical decisions at the time of carrying out the delivery.
“Based on the fact that advanced paternal age is understood as a man of at least 40 years of age, in the case of later ages, it is the medical problems associated with aging that mean that the quality of the semen is not optimal and can lead to result in a somewhat higher risk of diseases in the baby, although they are very rare. Male fertility is a field that is still somewhat unknown in scientific matters, so at IVI, aware of this, we continue to investigate day by day to face the challenges that it presents”concludes Dr. Garrido.
