The "Four Dos" and "Four Don'ts" of Pregnant Dads

1. Exercise

Whether it is the father or the mother, the normal function of the body is the prerequisite for conceiving a baby. If you want a strong body, you must insist on physical exercise to strengthen your body, enhance immunity, and relax your tired and anxious mood during exercise. The time for exercise before pregnancy should not be less than 15 to 30 minutes a day, and it is generally best to exercise in the early morning. Recommended exercise items: jogging, walking, aerobics, boxing, mountain climbing, outings and other activities. It is not recommended to ride a bicycle for a long time.

2. Go to bed early and get up early

The so-called "work at sunrise and rest at sunset" is the most natural state of life. Few people in today's cities can do this. Therefore, adjusting your work and rest time before pregnancy to match the natural rhythm of life is beneficial to the body's best condition. It is recommended that prospective parents who are planning to get pregnant should prepare for bed at around 10 o'clock every night. If they stick to it, they can establish a normal rhythm of the body's biological clock.

3. Keep a happy mood

Don’t think that only expectant mothers suffer from depression. In fact, emotional factors also have a significant impact on male sexual function. For men who are often depressed, worried, or irritable, it often causes cerebral cortical dysfunction, endocrine function, testicular spermatogenesis, and sexual function instability, affecting sperm production and quality.

Clinical investigations on male depression patients found that their fertility rate increased from 29.9% to 45.5%. Therefore, if prospective fathers want to have a baby smoothly, they must maintain a good mood, face life with a smile, and know how to turn stress into motivation.

4. Eat a balanced diet

Fathers who are picky eaters will probably have unhealthy sperm. The production of sperm requires high-quality protein, minerals such as calcium and zinc, trace elements, arginine, and a variety of vitamins. Therefore, fathers-to-be should eat more foods high in zinc during the pregnancy preparation period, because zinc is directly involved in the production and activity of sperm. For example, eat more oysters, beef, millet, peanuts, beans, radishes, etc., especially all kinds of seafood, which are not only high in zinc, but also can improve male sexual function.

"Four Don'ts"

1. Don’t smoke. Quit smoking 3-6 months before pregnancy.

We all know the harm of smoking to humans. For men who are preparing for pregnancy, this harm is even more fatal. Because the nicotine, carbon monoxide, cadmium, lead and other toxic substances in the smoke can easily damage the spermatogenic cells in the testicles, causing a decrease in male sperm and a decrease in sperm motility.

Studies have found that if a man smokes more than 20 cigarettes a day, his sperm survival rate is less than 50%, and the number of cigarettes a man smokes every day is proportional to the prenatal mortality rate and the birth rate of congenital malformations. Since sperm can survive for up to 2 months, prospective fathers need to quit drinking at least 3 months in advance.

2. Do not abuse drugs

At present, it has been clinically proven that many chemical drugs, such as estrogen, reserpine, chlorpromazine, etc., will affect the viability of sperm and increase the number of abnormal sperm. Therefore, if the prospective father has entered the state of preparing for pregnancy, he must be cautious about drugs and try to see a specialist doctor to avoid affecting the sperm.

On the other hand, what is often overlooked by prospective fathers is that they use estrogen-containing skin care creams in their daily lives. Some young couples do not use facial cleansers and skin care products separately, which leads to an increase in estrogen in the male body after using female skin care products.

3. Don’t drink alcohol

According to research over the years, babies born to expectant fathers after drinking alcohol often have a higher rate of malformation. This is because when a man has too much alcohol in his body, it can cause changes in the shape and activity of sperm, and even kill sperm, thus affecting conception and embryo development, causing the baby to have congenital intellectual disabilities.

A survey of men with a habit of drinking found that their sperm density would decrease by 56.6%, and alcohol would also reduce the synthesis of testosterone in men, resulting in sperm production disorders.

4. Do not sit for long periods of time, take a sitz bath, sauna, or wear tight pants

In recent years, IT men have gradually become a group that cannot successfully conceive. This is closely related to the nature of their profession. You should know that sitting in front of the computer for a long time will affect the heat dissipation function of the testicles and blood circulation, increase the local temperature of the testicles, and thus affect the production of sperm. In addition, men should not sit in the bath or sauna for a long time. In particular, they should not wear or wear less tight pants to avoid the high temperature causing a decrease in sperm density.