DH's smoking - affecting our chances?

[joyakshi]

My husband started smoking again 2 years ago, after having quit for 2 years. Before that he had smoked for 10-12 years.
We got pg and lost the baby 3.5 years ago during the time he was not smoking. Now we can't conceive after 15 cycles, IUI's etc. My RE can't figure out why exactly.
I've found studies that show that smoking prevents even sperm that looks good in a semen analysis from fertilizing an egg, and that the DNA gets out of sequence, preventing fertilization and causing birth defects.
I've thought for so long that something is wrong with me. Now I wonder if it's his smoking. Could it be that I'm fine and it's him?
He smokes about 4-8 cigarettes a day. So he's not a chain smoker. But I wonder if it could affect it anyway?


I am 38 - TTC for 15 cycles now. I'm ovulating, hormones normal. Had hysteroscopy 7/08 to remove 3 polyps. I have an endometrioma cyst on my left ovary, but it still ovulates.
Just did my first injectable IUI cycle after 2 natural IUI's and one missed IUI due to "possible" unconfirmed premature ovulation.
During my injectable IUI I had a 19mm follie, trilaminar lining 9 mm, good cervical fluid per the nurse, E2 at 111, trigger shot and well timed IUI and intercourse.
His sperm count was 24 million motile, forward moving sperm. Could they all be incapable of fertilization or out of sequence DNA?

[wtg4miracle]

We are in the same boat as you. I am the same age as you. I am 38 also and I thought it was me who was causing us not to conceive. Dh had a SA two weeks ago and found out that he had SEVERE morphology problems. Only 4% normal. He smokes and I am beginning to believe that the cig smoke is causing damage to the little guys. There are some reports that smoking can damage the morpholgy(size and shape) of the sperm. His counts (320million total) and motility were great(77%) but they are mishappen. (I have no idea if they are mishappen how can they move, hmm) SO i believe he doesn't have hormonal or physical issues its just that he is killing them as a smokes. Everytime he smokes I tell him he just killed about a million swimmer soldiers.


DH smokes a pack a day. He is quitting as we speak. He is done to 2-3 cigs a day now for a week now. He is on Chantix now. It helps but he needs to get over the emotional aspect of not smoking. The drug helps the physical cravings of the nicotine.

I have a strong feeling that his smoking did some damage to his swimmers. He is otherwise healthy and his sperm counts and motility are really great. Its just that 96% of them are dysfuntional.

He is on pyncogenol , mega mens (GNC) multivitamin and l-arginine to help with the corosive activity from the smoking. I want him to take additional vit c but he claims it hurts his stomach.

We have an RE appt this week to find out what our options are.

[joyakshi]

Thanks for the reply. It's maddening isn't it? All that time trying, and now it takes 3 months after they quit for sperm to return to normal. At our age, time is precious. It's hard not to keep trying in the meantime, but why waste the money/insurance doing IUI's when the sperm can't do their job?
My husband's sperm count was 54 million, of which 24 million were good as far as morphology and forward motion - BUT - the semen analysis doesn't catch DNA sequencing problems, or their ability of the sperm to bind to the egg and fertilize, which smoking can hinder. So they can look fine, and still be unable to fertilize from the nicotine. I'm going to try to get a couple of advanced assays to test for these problems for my DH. Otherwise, those are good suggestions about the supplements to help reduce the negative effects of the nicotine.
Good luck to you both!