Guys, Can men father healthy kids forever? Can they produce healthy sperm forever?

Question

So, some  very smart  men tend to think that they can make healthy babies all the way to their last days. They think they can make healthy babies at 50+.

RoοstеrBrеаst · Accepted Answer

It depends just like any other area of our physical health, though everything goes to shit even at 40 most start to complain, comparing men by age doesn't mean worse 100% of the time. Very few men can stay muscular after 70, while some look like soyboys in their 20s. And I assume, most muscular 70 year olds will have better sperm quality than 20 year old soyboys.

Hispanic-Cool-Guy · Accepted Answer

No. Pass the age of 50, men sperm quality begins to drop thus the child can be born more likely with defects.

MrOracle · Answer

A significant amount of men can produce children into their 60s and 70s. There's a sizable minority - perhaps 30% - who lose the ability to create healthy sperm in their 50s, but that's the exception, not the rule. Obviously that percentage increases as people climb in age.

For those alive in the 1970s and 80s, you might remember the TV show The Odd Couple (based on the movie, which I believe was originally based on a play), and actor Tony Randall played the neat freak Felix, who due to financial issues was forced to share a home with slob Oscar, played by Jack Klugman.

L: Felix Unger (Randall) and R: Oscar Madison (Klugman), The Odd Couple

Tony Randall's wife of many years died when Tony was in his 60s, and he remarried in his late 60s to a woman of 28, and fathered a son with her at the age of 71, who was born when he was 72.

Historically, wealthy men (who had the advantage of being able to afford food when peasants often went malnourished) frequently had several wives over their lifetimes, as women could be lost from sickness or childbirth, and it was not uncommon for their second or third (or even fourth or fifth) wives to give them multiple children, with the men fathering children into their 60s and 70s.

That's not to say that men don't have a "biological clock" - they technically do - but men's fertile period is significantly longer than women's is, which makes sense as gestation and childbirth is much harder on the woman's body than for men, obviously, so nature built in a natural "early ending" to the fertility period to ensure women don't literally die of having too many children.

ohsheeT · Answer

I really don't know the answer to this I do know that I wouldn't want to be that type of father I want to be active I want to teach I want to guide and I want to protect and I want to laugh and I want to experience all of that at the same time and if I cannot protect a child from basically anything from what our planet is headed for or where it's going or anything like that if I was not around to protect that child in some form or another I would not want to have that child or another child I guess I should say I had my kids and one of the best experiences that I will ever ever have and I'm very proud..

rigmarole · Answer

Technically yes. Primordial Germ Cells (PGC) are immortal. The problem always comes down to cell differentiation due to signals produced by neighboring cells in the environment... If the wrong molecular signals are sent, then the wrong outcome will be reached. So sure, it's technically possible to signal PGCs properly and get healthy sperm from men their entire life and even from their cell lines long after they have died, but naturally, other cells in the body that are not immortal which signal the PGC will malfunction due to accumulated mutations as we age. So you're not as smart are you think you are.

Boromir · Answer

Men’s fertility goes down after they passed 50, less healthy sperm and each year harder to knock up a lady.

Having said that. Today’s younger (male) generation has statistically much worse sperm then the men their age 25 years ago.

Oh well, they’ll need a couple of more rounds to impregnate their partner. Doesn’t take the fun out of it.

davado88 · Answer

50 plus is last days? im hoping for another 30 years before roasting in hell,
And by the way my sperm is the same as always.
dont try to sell us the biological clock hysteria women suffer from.
i need an extra mouth to feed like a hole in the head anyway.
it squirts out like its meant to. Thats all i need know

LiamJHayden · Answer

My dad was a month shy of 56 and my mom almost 45 when I was born. While many might accuse me of being low-IQ, the GATE administrator at my school disagreed. I do have CBAVD, so perhaps that could be attributed to their advanced age. Otherwise, I am quite healthy.

Of course, as I just finished arguing on another question, a single case does not support a broad conclusion, so there is that.

Light_beam · Answer

you are right, age affects the quality and health of the sperms.. but still , mostly healthy sperms reach the ova.. the bad ones just get lost in the long way.. and if you are still worried you can do IVF to manually choose a healthy sperm and use it..

DextroShade · Answer

We still have the potential to father healthy children into old age even if the risk of defects is higher, unlike women whose reproductive system shuts down entirely in middle age