Alcohol and men
Sperm are fragile and delicate cells. Any number of factors can affect sperm quality, including illness, fatigue, and stress. Alcohol, or more specifically the ethyl alcohol it contains, reduces the motility of a man’s reproductive cells, reducing his fertility.
It was previously believed that a couple of drinks had no effect on sperm quality, as sperm is produced long before a man drinks. Doctors now completely refute this belief, as alcohol breakdown products enter the seminal fluid within an hour of drinking. Destructive processes begin to occur, and alcohol destroys and “cripples” healthy sperm cells. A sperm without a tail or head is incapable of conception.
Long-term and systematic alcohol consumption leads to unhealthy sperm production, altering not only their morphology but also their genetic makeup. If such a genetically altered sperm does fertilize an egg, the risk of having a diseased child is very high.
In the past, when medicine wasn’t as advanced, natural selection was more often at work. Diseased and defective embryos resulting from drunken conception were rejected by the woman’s body, resulting in miscarriage. Now, doctors strive to preserve pregnancies at all costs, so children with severe pathologies, defects, and chromosomal abnormalities are increasingly being born.
Regular alcohol consumption negatively impacts potency. Moreover, the more and for longer a man drinks, the worse his libido and ability to perform sexually. New sperm takes a long time to mature—about three months.
This is why doctors recommend abstaining from alcohol for 3-4 months if a man is serious about becoming the father of a healthy and happy baby.
Alcohol and women’s health
Every girl is born with a large “strategic” reserve of eggs in her ovaries. During puberty, eggs begin to be released from the follicles once a month, ovulation occurs, and the menstrual cycle is established. Alcohol can disrupt this process, causing an increase in anovulatory cycles—cycles in which ovulation does not occur at all.
The morphology and structure of eggs, just like sperm, are subject to change under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol has a destructive effect not only on the dominant follicle where the egg matures and will be released this cycle, but also on the entire reserve of eggs in the ovaries. Therefore, the chances of conceiving a healthy child in a woman who drinks are minimal, even if she quit drinking several months ago.
The ovaries themselves, when their “owner” drinks regularly, begin to rapidly age, their function declines, and the woman becomes infertile. But many may wonder why, then, women who drink and suffer from overt alcoholism regularly become pregnant and give birth, and more quickly than teetotal couples trying to have a baby.
The answer to this question is rather unexpected. A woman’s eggs, while ovarian function has not completely ceased, have the ability to “mobilize” in extreme situations, as their primary function is to procreate. They begin to fulfill this program with redoubled vigor, no longer healthy and fully functional, so healthy conception is out of the question.
Conception while intoxicated
If both partners are intoxicated at the time of conception, but are not chronic drinkers, there is a chance that conception will be successful and the child will be healthy, but it is not great.
It’s not hard to guess the risks a man and woman face when they decide to drink alcohol before sex. The health of their unborn child is at stake. For a man, intoxication at the moment of conception is more critical than for a woman, as alcohol penetrates the semen, altering its reproductive cells. The woman’s egg is already mature. If a woman hasn’t consumed alcohol during the follicular phase of her cycle, a small amount of alcohol at the moment of conception won’t have time to affect the egg itself, but it can affect its division and movement through the fallopian tube after the egg meets the sperm.
This is why “drunk” sex often results in ectopic pregnancy, early miscarriage, and abruption of the fertilized egg. Any interference with the delicate processes of fertilized egg division, including chemical ones, can lead to disruption of these processes and pregnancy loss.
Drinking alcohol after conception
At least two weeks pass from conception to the missed period, which is the signal for a woman to take a pregnancy test. Sometimes, a woman is completely unaware that she has conceived and, during these two weeks, leads a free lifestyle, often including alcohol. After a “stripe” test revealing the true cause of her missed period, a woman inevitably wonders how the alcohol she consumed before her missed period could affect the unborn child and whether she should continue the pregnancy.
Everything that enters the mother’s body in the first hours after conception is passed on to the unborn baby to varying degrees. Unless chronic alcoholism or large doses of strong alcohol are involved, a woman’s body can partially compensate for the discomfort to the child. Therefore, an abortion simply because a woman had a few glasses of wine before a missed period is not advisable. In all likelihood, the healthy and young body of the expectant mother will have minimized the harmful effects.
It is important to avoid alcohol consumption in the future , as the baby is going through an important and crucial process – the development of all organs and systems. Alcohol can make its own “adjustments,” which can lead to malformations of the internal organs, brain, and spinal cord.
Drinking alcohol early in pregnancy increases the risk of severe morning sickness during pregnancy.
The immunity of a woman who drank alcohol before conception is weakened compared to a woman who doesn’t drink. This creates an additional risk during pregnancy, as such a woman is more vulnerable to viruses and bacteria in her environment.
The consequences of “drunken conception” for the child
It’s undeniable that alcohol before and during conception affects the child. But for some reason, not all couples consider this. Most likely, the reason for this carelessness lies in the lack of specific information about the potential consequences. We’re accustomed to being told that alcohol is harmful, without any explanation of how exactly drinking can affect the offspring. Alcohol, which affects the reproductive cells of both women and men at the moment of conception, can disrupt the formation of DNA chains in the dividing cells of the zygote. The development of organs and systems can be disrupted from the start.
There are several of the most common consequences of “drunk conception.”
Hare lip and cleft palate
A cleft lip is a facial defect caused by the upper lip not closing, forming a disfiguring cleft. This creates feeding difficulties for the baby, and later, the cleft interferes with speech development. Boys are most often born with this defect. The cleft usually develops before the eighth week of pregnancy.
The pathology is caused by a mutation in the TBX22 gene, which can be caused not only by radiation exposure but also by regular alcohol consumption, even in small amounts, by both spouses or one spouse. Unfortunately, this defect can only be detected in a child in the late stages of pregnancy during an ultrasound. Typically, at this stage (after 32 weeks), pregnancy is no longer terminated.
Cleft palate is a condition associated with the formation of a cleft between the soft and hard palates, a failure of fusion that leaves the nasal cavity separated from the oral cavity. This also creates significant problems with feeding and speech development in children. This condition is most often caused by maternal factors, as it is caused by alcohol and other teratogenic factors affecting the TBX22 gene on the X chromosome.
In both cases, the child will undergo surgery, or possibly a series of surgeries, to correct the defect, followed by a lengthy rehabilitation period. Cleft palate is more common and more difficult to treat. It’s common for a child to undergo up to seven surgeries before the age of 2 or 3.
Fetal alcohol syndrome
This term encompasses a wide range of combinations of mental and physical defects and anomalies that develop in a fetus due to the mother’s alcohol consumption before or after conception. Most often, the central nervous system is affected, and the child is born with mental retardation, intellectual and behavioral disabilities, and structural anomalies in certain parts of the brain.
Almost all children conceived in a drunken frenzy are born underweight and short. Frequent manifestations of fetal alcohol syndrome include congenital heart defects and reproductive system defects. The severity of these defects depends on the amount, duration, and frequency of alcohol consumption by the mother and father. All children with this syndrome share certain physical characteristics:
- the eyes appear shorter and narrower;
- the bridge of the baby’s nose is flattened and wide;
- the philtrum (the vertical folds between the upper lip and the nose) is almost absent;
- the upper lip is thinner;
- Mongoloid fold of the eyelids in the area of the lacrimal canal;
- a certain degree of microcephaly (reduction in the size of the skull and brain mass).
Children with fetal alcohol syndrome are usually visible immediately after birth. All alcohol-related abnormalities are considered lifelong and do not improve with age. Signs of fetal alcohol syndrome are not always visible externally.
If a woman drinks infrequently and only a little, but still systematically, and if a non-drinking woman decides to conceive with a heavy drinker, the processes characteristic of fetal alcohol syndrome will be latent in the child, but they will definitely manifest.
Other consequences
Excessive alcohol consumption by the mother, father, or both spouses before conception, at the time of conception, in the first two weeks after conception, and also during pregnancy often manifests itself later in the child, who at birth appears completely healthy.
These disabilities include hearing and vision impairments, which parents begin to discover a few weeks or months after their baby is born. They have a reduced learning ability, making it much more difficult to teach them even basic skills. They have significant problems with memory and concentration.
Behavioral problems in children born from “drunk conception” begin to manifest not only in adolescence, but earlier. They often require education in special correctional schools. Such children are physically unable to control their emotions, and they have a poor understanding of the consequences of their unseemly or illegal behavior.
Some statistics
Expectant parents often think that the consequences described above could affect anyone but their family. This is not true, as the stark statistics show that out of every 1,000 newborns in Russia, 10 babies show signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. If a family raises one child with this syndrome, then, statistically, the second child has an 80% chance of also suffering from some degree of fetal alcohol syndrome.
A woman who drinks several times a week has a 45% risk of giving birth to a baby with a disease. If she continues drinking during pregnancy, this risk doubles. Russian studies have shown that 13% of babies in orphanages or children’s homes show clear signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, and 45% of children show signs of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) (symptoms are subtle, but present).
Ninety percent of such children are at risk of developing sudden alcoholism in adolescence. Women who drank moderately during pregnancy are no less at risk. The child will be genetically predisposed to alcoholism.
To prevent such a future, it is worth taking care of the baby’s health now, before it is conceived.
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