When it comes to making a baby, we know it takes two to tango. So why do the pressures of fertility often fall on only one half of the equation? In this video, data journalist Mona Chalabi examines some of the big misconceptions around fertility, shares significant blind spots in the data, and reveals why we need more research on sperm.
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TED
November 9, 2021 at 8:35 pm
Enjoying Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi? Click here to watch more episodes of the TED Original series:
Dan Miller
November 10, 2021 at 3:24 am
Sorry but this is just an example of FUD, male bashing, male shaming and ageism. Lower sperm counts, lower motility and less “normal shaped” sperm DON’T mean an older man can’t get a fertile woman pregnant and create a perfectly healthy baby. It just takes one motile, “normal shaped” sperm. Sure, maybe the odds of getting pregnant go down, but the men don’t have to carry a child to birth, so, biologically, a man’s body can be older and frailer. Women’s bodies are baby making machines and have a “reproductive age”. Men just don’t. Sorry ladies.
Sorry guys. You still have to consider birth control your entire life… facts.
Piyusha Sinha
November 10, 2021 at 3:12 pm
Ohk
Piyusha Sinha
November 10, 2021 at 3:12 pm
@Dan Miller don’t tease ted
Nico Smets
November 9, 2021 at 8:51 pm
Is it me, or is she giving of a vengefull vibe?
itzYaseen
November 10, 2021 at 12:07 am
More like feminism gender equality vibe
Lonni A.
November 9, 2021 at 9:00 pm
It’s ok, I’m 10 years when you go to your friends children birthdays you can tell everyone how you got on Ted once
n4d3m4n
November 9, 2021 at 9:06 pm
up to age 49 for women? there’s a really low chance in the 40s of a successful pregnancy. They’re often considered “High RIsk” right off the bat. It’s like we should get married sooner and have kids sooner instead of focusing on high pressure jobs for more money. It’s like the family is more important than money…
Graywalker Join3rdParty
November 9, 2021 at 9:36 pm
There is no shortage of Sperm. It’s Uteri that are in demand.
Laili Attai
November 9, 2021 at 9:38 pm
This is SO relevant rn. Glad this message is being shared.
Dad
November 9, 2021 at 9:48 pm
I feel like this video is just stating the obvious…
Snoop
November 9, 2021 at 10:03 pm
2:30 😂 of course again its only the fault of the men.
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November 9, 2021 at 10:17 pm
Good Video, I’m kinda motivated by it, but I have been hoping to see videos pertains on how to make wealth….
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November 9, 2021 at 11:37 pm
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November 9, 2021 at 11:38 pm
I thought of investing in cryptocurrency in 2019 but I was discouraged, it is safe now..?
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November 9, 2021 at 11:46 pm
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November 9, 2021 at 11:54 pm
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Helmi Halim
November 9, 2021 at 10:23 pm
What do you mean equal billing?
JustAGuy
November 9, 2021 at 10:26 pm
Wow, people really hated men before. Didn’t even care to do research on their fertility.
Jota_Del_Fry
November 9, 2021 at 10:29 pm
1:37 The article never mentioned “Big change in fertility”. It did say:
TLDR: – cited article says that the measured variables are within the normal fertile range and all of them are above 5th percentile of fertile man according to a WHO article.
– cited article neve mentioned ‘big change on fertility’, nor fertility at all
“With the exception of lower average measured values for ejaculates from patients older than 46.5 years, average values for volume, sperm concentration, motility, and total sperm numbers in all age groups in the present study (Table 1) were within the World Health Organization’s respective 25th and 75th percentile ranges for unscreened men from the general [fertile] population”
The artile mentioned also has only one more group after the age of 46.5, which ranges from 46.5 to 72.
The WHO article mentioned on this quote also indicates the 5th percentils of various measurements also considered in the quoted article, and all of them were well above it, even the >46.5 years old group.
The article did say that some variances beetween the group ages are ‘significant’, which is what she said. But saying that has significant impact on fertility is wrong.
[edit: spacing]
Haggis
November 9, 2021 at 10:34 pm
Its very simple, women have babies, men don’t. No need to cry about it love its nature.
Jessie91J
November 9, 2021 at 10:38 pm
you need two to tango…
Louise Adams
November 9, 2021 at 10:53 pm
…Woman in her twenties trying to have children with a man in his forties here. I’ve been pregnant before so I know there’s no issues on my side, but Dr’s insist on focusing on my health… I can’t help but feel a bit resentful.
K Smith
November 10, 2021 at 12:23 am
So why not just get him to do a fertility test. Easy.
Josh Alfstad
November 9, 2021 at 11:18 pm
It’d be nice to live in an economy/ society that encourages couples to have children during the timeframe with the best outcomes. Instead we’re making it harder every generation.
Wenit Bewood
November 9, 2021 at 11:20 pm
Calm down Mona, this is a nothing sandwich, and your use of a deliberately deceptive animation demonstrates my point. No, men’s sperm don’t ALL disappear as depicted in the animation, true men’s fertility decreases with age, but it often does not “disappear” all together, whereas for women, with only rare exceptions, their ability to have children as they age DOES disappear. Apples and oranges.
wtp1981
November 9, 2021 at 11:26 pm
I won’t freeze my sperm, I keep it in some socks under my bed.
chas in lakewood
November 9, 2021 at 11:27 pm
At 60… I don’t have to worry about ‘knocking up’ someone?
Sounds like it could still be a 1-in-16million shot.
ourforgiveness *com
November 9, 2021 at 11:54 pm
…”And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
0 0
November 10, 2021 at 12:26 am
Thats ur mom. Im not judging. Think its great.
0 0
November 10, 2021 at 12:27 am
The men are exposed to testosterone and hair and other things. This is Very biased. Both sexes should not be harassed. But this is just against men instead of being equal! Hypocrite
0 0
November 10, 2021 at 12:28 am
This is sexist! Horrible! Taking it out on men. Thats her solution to her feelings of insecurity??? I think if this was equal, amen but this is an attck! Garbage 🗑
itzYaseen
November 10, 2021 at 12:43 am
Biased cherry-picked based citations nonsensical video.
alieninthecaribbean
November 10, 2021 at 1:15 am
Wonder how different the response would be if a man presented this exact information instead of her? I would love TED to do a social experiment where they test the presentation of information on anything sexuality-related by a man vs. a woman with exactly the same script.
ÂLPHÂ_Ø
November 10, 2021 at 1:18 am
Good news for LGBT
Edge
November 10, 2021 at 4:01 am
imagine if it was a guy in their 40s/50s saying “now I can continue to date young hot women” lmao
Thomas Lecomte
November 10, 2021 at 8:04 am
Yeah I agree it was a strange thing to say
AlleenLoveHope
November 10, 2021 at 2:55 pm
I do think that statement was odd but she said she’s right in the middle of her reproductive years. She listed those numbers (16 and 49) so she’s somewhere around 32 (the median of those numbers). Google says she’s 34. So comparing it to men in their 40s and 50s isnt a genuine comparison. However, a man of 34 saying the same thing about young women still feels icky. The only thing I can think of is that she means “young” as in her age or just below rather than a 40-something yr old, not an 18 yr old.
Δ.Μ
November 10, 2021 at 6:39 pm
Why not?
glamdrag
November 11, 2021 at 12:16 am
@AlleenLoveHope The point is that people that scream “misogyny” the loudest tend to have double standards
Vikram krishna Neeli
November 10, 2021 at 4:27 am
While it’s a new perspective and ofcourse more research should be done, the need of only one healthy sperm in millions, in my view should significantly favor odds for men
Alex Trofimov
November 10, 2021 at 4:29 am
I couldn’t finish this video. The title has nothing to do with feeling pressured. This video is lost in its own content. This has no place on the TED channel. It’s neither Tech, Educational or adjacent to Design. Please remove.
Katie T
November 10, 2021 at 4:46 am
I don’t really agree with the idea that there’s not enough focus on the men’s side. If you’ve ever been to a fertility clinic, you know they do an intense work up on both the man and the woman and try to figure out who has the problems. They don’t just focus on the woman. True there is a lot more that can be done on the woman’s side, but that is because she carries the baby. The baby has to grow and implant inside of her and there’s many variables that go past just fertilization of the egg. Additionally, women’s fertility declines much faster than men’s. One area of men’s health that I agree there’s not enough information about is the role of dna fragmentation in failed fertilization rates.
glamdrag
November 11, 2021 at 12:08 am
my thoughts exactly. It feels like a forcing of “the same” onto different parties. Also for men the decline in fertility is mostly during intercourse, it’s still much easier to use sperm in a lab setting at a later age than it is to use eggs of older women.
Laura Powers
November 10, 2021 at 5:52 am
This is the new propaganda to accept all the chemicals that diminish their testosterone. More bullshit ans less teuth brought to you by a corporate profiteer.
Lonni A.
November 10, 2021 at 6:20 am
Do men end up with Down syndrome babies after 40 too?
psifiusc
November 10, 2021 at 6:24 am
This video represents so many reasons why *whatever* can cause our species to just stop reproducing at all, it would be a great thing!
Augustin Fabre
November 10, 2021 at 7:26 am
Well I wish we had a super declining fertility rate, both times I tried to have a baby I got a baby.. aged 35 and 40. Now I’m scared to have another one even with contraception but I don’t feel ready for a vasectomy, and my partner doesn’t want to be operated either. The truth is.. it’s better to have kids younger. It’s a healthier age gap to have 20 something years difference with your kids and for your parents to be grandparents in their 50s… not to mention how nice it is to have our own grandparents knowing our offspring. But yes, the ticking clock works both ways.
Thomas Lecomte
November 10, 2021 at 8:02 am
I’ve always felt it was weird that men are fertile their whole lives through just because. Glad research is going deeper into the subject
cgfreeandeasy
November 10, 2021 at 8:27 am
Ok, if the manosphere speeks of “the Wall”, that is undefeated, then this is significant for both sexes. These manosphere howeever has a agenda and misappropriates tactical, that man also affected, because they are justified to a special problem to woman. And aside from that they explain, that man in their middle ages comes to higher sovereignty in dating, what is correkt so, but nevertheless only a smal part of man – not all. They tell us not the hole truth – like everywhere and always else as well.
And all this is not only delimited on fertility, also for other life-aspects. The life-power and activity has at the age of ca 25 years a maximum and then it is unlikely to get any better. How long you can stay so fit and highly productive (which is also psychologically relevant) varies.
From the many conditions one can deduce that man (and woman too) would have to know with 25 years what and where one wants to be and live with 30-35 years, because if one becomes clear about it too late and begins late to work on it, then one will hardly have sufficient energy and motivation for a new beginning in case of failure. And in some aspects there is anyway no reset or
“new-beginning, because live can´t push back.
These years of life are the most important years of life. They are the part of life in which the most happens, because the performance and determination and the health/fitness is (can be) the highest.
Partnership, family planning, career… everything would have to be decided in these about 5 years time frame. Because then the vitality and motivation to cope with everything is the greatest.
Apparently, however, this is contradicted by a zeitgeist that believes the populist “freedom ideologies” of advertising and employers that everything is possible at any time. But this is “the other” perspective, and does not think in terms of the individual, but in terms of a lifestyle and corporate policy. It is therefore hypocrisy, which is not interested in what is real individuel really, because it adheres to the fashion of the better life for advertising purposes.
That one has overlooked / ignored men with the question of the fertility up to now obviously, is then again simply because that just the wesendliches with the reproduction is the woman and for an “insemination” in the end always another man is found. A rather extreme herrabsetzung of the man, which one eigendlich in such a way cannot leave. But this has of course in times of the feminist self-realization absolutely no “priority”, why one also does not think of the man.
Mike Get
November 10, 2021 at 10:38 am
She is the reason there are gay men in the world.
manfred schmalbach
November 11, 2021 at 10:48 pm
I thought something along this remark tbh 😅
Spam Mouse
November 10, 2021 at 11:12 am
Look at the increase in food sources of Estrogen that affects male fertility.
el solo
November 10, 2021 at 11:21 am
Lol. Tell that to Anthony Quinn
Paulo G
November 10, 2021 at 11:58 am
This woman really said ‘people with ovaries’ 😂😂 I’m dead
Wendy G.
November 10, 2021 at 12:38 pm
Thank you! 👍🏻
Herbsandflowers
November 10, 2021 at 1:13 pm
Lovely how a video aiming to make a point about misogyny talks about men and “people with ovaries”.
Mhm, maybe because saying “people with prostates” would be a demeaning term but saying the other one is just fine, after all – a bit of misogyny is always okay. 👍
Purple Pinkie Pie
November 12, 2021 at 12:05 am
Oh no people use terms like that for men too.
Herbsandflowers
November 13, 2021 at 7:57 am
@Purple Pinkie Pie Oh no rarely to never just look at major medical newsoutlets and search for prostate cancer and ovarian cancer – you’re in for a big surprise
Michał Siwiec
November 10, 2021 at 2:05 pm
Message is important and information in it is vital. Wording is bad and off-putting for at least part of male audience.
M Marchanda
November 10, 2021 at 3:35 pm
Men and women are not equal in this point. Male fertility may decrease with age, but nearly never stops completely. Female fertility decrease and some day stop completely. Women can complain about this, but our bodies don´t follow any Equal Opportunities Act. Gender is a fact.
Herbsandflowers
November 11, 2021 at 7:14 am
We can freeze our eggs and still get pregnant in our 60s. Our fertility doesn’t decrease in that sense , it’s just that we use up the eggs 😂
Jacob
November 10, 2021 at 9:18 pm
Why is she so angry
Stefan Nikola
November 10, 2021 at 11:50 pm
I have a judgment about your vocabulary. People with ovaries?! Come on. Stop being politically correct. It’s obnoxious. You mean women. So, say “women.”
glamdrag
November 11, 2021 at 12:05 am
good example of forcing the same on different parties
SommyBliss Nriama
November 11, 2021 at 1:53 am
*Why have women sworn never to just let us be?!*
Wouldn’t it be a dream come true if at 65 I wouldn’t need a condom? We never complained!!!!
Xcii Mani
November 11, 2021 at 1:35 pm
Such bullshit. I expected better from TED.
Dreglanoth
November 11, 2021 at 5:20 pm
Personally, I think having babies is bad for the planet. Stay single, adopt
manfred schmalbach
November 11, 2021 at 10:36 pm
So what? As if next to 8 billion wouldn’t more than suffice ….. Once You look into the bloody mess those nearly 8 billion stage, it would be waay better the number declined, and quickly.
Nicolás Táppero
November 12, 2021 at 11:32 am
Male fertility drops after 34.
Alright, but by how much? And how does it compare to woman?
We want numbers!
The fact we didn’t get the numbers makes me suspicious because I know you love numbers Mona.
Logic seeker
November 12, 2021 at 4:06 pm
Feminism viral attack detected!
peter stuart
November 12, 2021 at 5:47 pm
You can of course go after younger hotter men but in general most of them want to have you and not keep you if you can handle that your golden. Of course world wide male fertility and testosterone is dropping due to woman estrogen from the pill in the water so you may have to work at a bit or that may kill of your chance as well. But hey you go Girl
Severinsen
November 12, 2021 at 8:48 pm
I’m surprised this wasn’t researched further sooner TBH.
Next up they should research how this affects conception.
For instance if one younger part (male or female) balances out the possibility of deformities in a fetus? It is all very interesting.
Invox
November 12, 2021 at 9:23 pm
I beg to differ. I am 44 and I’ve been getting ads (Youtube and other Social Medias) to increase my “member” and my “vitality” for a long time. I won’t say a decade but certainly 5 years or more. So yeah, we get hit with it too.
Leth
November 13, 2021 at 9:18 am
I was glad to hear the beginning of the video and I thought it would end with something like: society and men need to stop harassing women and should be treated better regardless of their age. But the end of the video strangely sounded more like: in a society where women and men were egal, men should be treated badly too.
I’m not english native, did I miss something?
allinone
November 13, 2021 at 2:45 pm
wasted my time
Sakina Fletcher
November 13, 2021 at 4:19 pm
Its true that sperms quality decreases but the effect it has on fertility is negligible. There’s a reason why we needed to focus on women’s health from such an earlier time in history , as any issues will have a much greater bearing from a physiological standpoint. Not to mention she is the one carrying the child for 9 months so her uterus need to be in the best condition possible that medicine can facilitate
Donavan B LoForte RPN, RCRT, LCRT
November 15, 2021 at 3:27 pm
Are you gonna YELL through the whole vid?
Kal Trex
November 16, 2021 at 1:01 am
Good health related thought to keep in mind. Men should also ask their doctor to monitor testosterone levels trough time via blood test. Ancient cultures used medicines and herbals for men and women.
Every man I know has conversations with their pcp about age related happenings, the public just doesn’t know or want to go in detail in someone else’s life just intake and fester with given stuff.