Your ability to father children is greatly influenced by various factors, including your diet, lifestyle, and medical history. Many of these factors affecting your fertility can be controlled or prevented.

However, there are also those which are beyond any man’s control. How early your puberty began, for example, is not something you have any say about. The same goes for your family medical history, especially if cryptorchidism or hypogonadotropism runs in your family.

Here are 5 factors that can destroy your fertility.

1. Childhood Urological Disorders

Childhood urological problems such as cryptorchidism or hypospadias may be contributing factors to male infertility. Cryptorchidism or undescended testicles is a condition that’s known to be associated with decreased sperm production as well as reduced semen quality.

Hypospadias, on the one hand, will prevent you from being able to properly place your semen at the opening of your partner’s cervix. That’s because if you have hypospadias, the opening of your penis is not found at the tip of your sex organ. Rather, it’s found on the underside of your penis.

2. Timing of Puberty

For boys, puberty typically starts between the ages of 9 and 14. If you started going through puberty even before you were nine years old, that’s clinically referred to as a precocious puberty.

A precocious puberty is usually a result of an endocrinologic disorder. This means that something is seriously wrong with your endocrine glands, which include your pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands, as well as your hypothalamus and your testicles. Any endocrinologic problem will result in a hormonal imbalance which, in turn, leads to infertility.

In contrast, for boys whose puberty were delayed, they may be suffering from testosterone secretion problems. This could mean that there’s something wrong with the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, or there’s testicular insufficiency.

These three organs figure prominently in a man’s sexual development and reproductive health. So, if there’s an issue with any of these organs, fertility will also be adversely affected.

3. Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer and tumors in the testicles almost always cause impaired spermatogenic function. This means that your sperm production will be negatively affected by the abnormal cellular growth in your testicles.

Between germ cell tumors and testicular cancer, the latter is tied to a higher degree of testicular dysfunction. In fact, more than 60% of men who are diagnosed with testicular cancer have oligospermia or low sperm counts.

What’s even more problematic about testicular cancer is that the treatments for the disease almost always contribute to infertility. For instance, orchiectomy or surgical removal of a testicle is typically performed on men with testicular cancer to prevent the spread of the disease.

When you only have one testicle left, both your testosterone and sperm production will be affected. Nevertheless, your remaining testicle may still be able to produce sperm, albeit at lower volumes. This means that if you opt for assisted reproductive technology, you will still have sperm samples to use for in vitro fertilization.

However, you may have to either bank your sperm prior to treatment or wait for a long time before your remaining testicle recovers from cancer treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can actually cause infertility, although sometimes it’s just temporary. It may take a year or more before your testicles recover from chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

With radiation therapy, the effects on spermatogenesis are dose-dependent. The higher the dosage used, the longer it will take for your testicles to recover enough to produce viable sperm again.

4. Spinal Cord Injury

A spinal cord injury may affect the nerves that control your ejaculatory function. Hence, you may end up developing anejaculation, which means that you’re completely unable to ejaculate.

Hence, you’ll need medical intervention in order to retrieve your sperm. Procedures that help retrieve sperm in men with anejaculation include sperm retrieval techniques and electroejaculation.

With the latter, you’ll have an electroejaculator inserted through your rectum and placed against your prostate to stimulate you to ejaculate. After you ejaculate, your sperm will be collected either from your urethra or from your bladder.

The problem with spinal cord injuries is that these usually lead to reduced semen quality. According to studies, patients with spinal cord injuries often have dead sperm in their semen. If there are live sperm in the semen, chances are high that sperm motility and viability are also reduced.

5. Medical History

For men, various medical conditions can affect both sexual functioning and reproductive health. Diabetes, for example, can cause nerve damage, neurogenic erectile dysfunction, as well as retrograde ejaculation.

When you suffer from retrograde ejaculation, either you have a low seminal volume because part of your semen flowed back into your bladder, or you don’t issue any semen at all. Either way, it could lower your chances of being able to get your partner pregnant.

Obesity is another medical condition that can impair both your fertility as well as your sexual functioning. When you’re obese, your hormonal metabolism gets altered. This results in an increased conversion of androgens to estrogen, as well as impaired luteinizing hormone function, leading to reduced sperm concentration.

Chronic kidney disease, on the one hand, can result in hypogonadism. It can also lead to feminization, which means that you take on female sexual characteristics such as enlarged breasts.

Liver diseases can also lead to enlarged breasts due to increased levels of estrogen. It can also result in testicular atrophy. If you suffered from mumps after your puberty, it can also cause testicular atrophy.

Obstruction of the epididymis or the vas deferens may happen as a result of tuberculosis or sexually transmitted diseases. When your epididymis or vas deferens is obstructed, the path of your sperm leading to your penile opening is blocked. This results in either reduced ejaculate volume or dry ejaculation. It may also cause painful ejaculation.

Naturally Enhancing Your Fertility

Herbal supplements can help improve your fertility. One of the most potent male sex enhancement supplements, it contains natural ingredients that can help increase your testosterone and sperm production, as well as improve your sperm count and quality.

It contains Tribulus terrestris, Tongkat Ali, horny goat weed, Butea superba, and maca. All of these herbal ingredients are known to help enhance male fertility. These herbs are the reasons why these supplements are such a powerful erection booster.