Protecting your ability to have children (when you're ready)

Men can begin protecting their fertility well before they are ready to start a family. Nutrition, a healthy lifestyle and decisions about sexual behavior influence your ability to conceive a child.

In the ideal situation you will be able to…

• Choose if and when you want to conceive a child
• Biologically conceive a child

Most men don’t realize that their reproductive health system is the most fragile system in the body. You need to know how to protect your future fertility. The decisions you make can affect your ability to have children later in life. By engaging in unprotected sex, you put yourself at risk for sexually transmitted diseases/infections (also called STD/STIs). When STD/STIs go untreated they can cause fertility problems.

What does all of this mean for men?

• One out of 5 adolescents and adults will have genital herpes infection. Genital herpes can make people more susceptible to HIV infection, and it can make HIV-infected individuals more infectious.
• For every 100,000 men, 190 will have chlamydia. While rare, infection sometimes spreads to the epididymis (the tube that carries sperm from the testis), causing pain, fever, and, rarely, sterility.
• For every 100,000 men, 114 will have gonorrhea. Gonorrhea can cause sterility if left untreated.
• HPV resulting in penile or anal cancers are rare, although gay and bisexual men are 17 times more likely to develop anal cancer than heterosexual men.

What you can do to protect yourself and protect your future fertility:

• Use condoms correctly and consistently.
• Limit the number of sexual partners you have.
• Get an annual physical.
• Get tested and ask your sexual partners to get tested (before you start having sex)!
• Recognize when you are in an abusive relationship and know who to call