Why heated car seats may pose a risk to fertility ?

Les sièges chauffants de voiture, un risque pour la fertilité ?

Dans les colonnes du Dailymail, en Grande-Bretagne, un expert en fertilité a récemment alerté sur les risques des sièges chauffants de voiture. Ils altéreraient en effet la qualité et la quantité des spermatozoïdes.

With temperatures dropping, many people are using the heated option on their car seat to gain a few degrees. A mistake if you want to have children in the near future, warns Dr. Ippokratis Sarris, director of the King’s Fertility, clinic specializing in fertility in London. According to him, "if’they are effective, prolonged use of these heated seats could potentially pose risks to men by increasing the temperature of the testicles to levels that could affect production of sperm." Indeed, this production requires that the testicles be kept a few degrees below the rest of the body.

But this is not the first time that this type of warning has been issued. Already in 2008, German researchers were interested in the subject. They observed in the laboratory that the frequent use of a heated car seat represents in some way thermal stress on the scrotum, the envelope which surrounds the testicles. A "heat stress" which necessarily resonates on the number of sperm, their health and their speed…

Other practices harmful to sperm

"Although this is reversible", continues Dr. Ippokratis Sarris, "if someone is trying to conceive, it is advisable to consider balancing comfort with protecting their reproductive health."

Still for the Daily Mail, Dr Channa Jayasena, head of the department of andrology at Imperial College London goes further, specifying that "anything that warms the testicles can damage some of the sperm, making them less likely to fertilize an egg." The two specialists provide some examples. Among them, diligent cycling, long hot baths or working with a laptop on your thighs.