We’ve only found out recently (probably only within the last 10 years) that men’s sperm quality contributes to miscarriage. Now, from the days of Adam and Eve, we’ve always thought that once a woman got pregnant anything that happened thereafter whether it was a miscarriage or a live birth was all to do with the woman’s body and the woman’s eggs but actually now we realize that the quality of a man’s sperm has a big impact on a miscarriage whether it’s just one miscarriage or whether it’s recurrent miscarriages this is very closely linked to the sperm DNA quality. So this has now been recognized in Europe and the European guidelines have shown that there is this strong link between sperm DNA damage and miscarriage. So the guidelines are suggesting that men ought to be told about this this risk and also that there should be made recommendation for them to improve their lifestyles, for example, if they smoke – to stop smoking, if they can to get make themselves as healthy as possible because this has a big impact on their partner’s ability to maintain her pregnancy.
There are various causes of miscarriage that could be transferred by the male partner and indeed the presence of abnormal sperm which is characterized by an increased DNA fragmentation index could be responsible for miscarriage. But also other examples will be genetic disorders carried by the male partner. So if the male partner is affected by chromosomal abnormality, depending on the type of chromosomal abnormality that could increase the risk of having a miscarriage because will be resulting into creating an embryo that could be genetically abnormal hence miscarrying. So the one element of the next challenge is caused by sperm abnormalities (including an increased sperm DNA fragmentation index). The other side would be a genetic disorder brought into the embryo by a partner.
