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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on April 11, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 167(12):1458-1464; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn076
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American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Parental Subfecundity and Risk of Decreased Semen Quality in the Male Offspring: A Follow-up Study

C. H. Ramlau-Hansen1, A. M. Thulstrup1, J. Olsen2 and J. P. Bonde1

1 Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
2 Department of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA

Correspondence to Dr. Cecilia Høst Ramlau-Hansen, Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Norrebrogade 44, Building 2C, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark (e-mail: craha{at}as.aaa.dk).

Received for publication January 4, 2008. Accepted for publication March 11, 2008.

A few studies have found poor semen quality in sons whose mothers have received fertility treatment, but it is unknown whether the poor semen quality is related to the infertility treatment or to infertility per se, for example, whether it is caused by hereditable factors. Using data from a population-based, Danish follow-up study conducted in 2005–2006, the authors of the present study examined whether sons of subfertile couples who had not received fertility treatment had poorer semen quality than sons of fertile couples. Among the 311 participants, an inverse association between parental waiting time to pregnancy and both semen volume and total sperm count was observed (p trend = 0.04 and p trend = 0.046, respectively). Semen volume in sons of subfertile parents (pregnant after ≥1 years) was 19% lower in comparison with that in sons of parents whose waiting time to pregnancy was 0–6 months (p = 0.02). Additionally, sperm concentration and percentage of morphologically normal sperm were, respectively, 22% (p = 0.15) and 23% (p = 0.13) lower in sons of subfertile parents. Results suggest a small-to-moderate effect of parental subfecundity on semen quality in sons, comparable with the hypothesis that low fecundity has at least partly hereditable causes.

fertility; gonadal steroid hormones; heredity; prenatal exposure delayed effects; semen; sperm count

Abbreviations: TTP, waiting time to pregnancy


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