Fertility Cliff: Is It Real?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re often told to have kids quickly, before our biological clock strikes and we fall off the fertility cliff. This week we find out if that’s true for women or men. And if the cliff is real, can you do anything about it, like freezing your eggs? Plus, the sperm-aggedon! We speak to epidemiologist Prof. Lauren Wise, reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Mary Sabatini, and andrologist Prof. Allan Pacey. UPDATE 7/10/19: A previous version of this episode incorrectly identified the nationality of a character in Indiana Jones. The episode has been updated accordingly. Check out the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/35DfLE8 Selected references: Lauren’s two studies looking at the fertility cliff. Click here if you want to be in one of her studies! Two studies looking at success rates of freezing eggs at different ages Review of the effect of paternal aging on the health of the offspringThe 2017 meta-analysis which shows the drop in sperm counts in several parts of the world Credits: This episode was produced by Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zukerman, as well as Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. Our senior producer is Kaitlyn Sawrey. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelley. Editing help from Caitlin Kenney. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Recording assistance from Mary Dooe and Andy Short. A huge thanks to all the scientists we got in touch with for this episode, including Dr. Richard Lea, Dr. Hagai Levine, Professor Jens Peter Ellekilde Bond, and others. And special thanks to everyone at Gimlet who listened to the episode, the Zukerman family, and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. And a huge thanks to Christopher Suter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Vs from Gimlet.
0:04.6	This is the show that picks facts against fertilization.
0:10.0	On today's show, the Fertility Cliff.
0:19.2	Whether you want a kid right now or you're thinking, maybe someday, you might have wondered,
0:25.6	is it a problem if you wait too long?
0:28.1	How much harder does it really get to make a baby if you leave it until you're a little bit older?
0:34.3	And this worry is especially personal for one of our producers on science vrs.
0:38.8	Merrill Horn and her husband Chris.
0:41.4	They're in their mid-30s and they've been busy focusing on their careers,
0:44.8	but recently they decided to start trying to have kids.
0:50.1	I talked to them about it at their Brooklyn apartment.
0:58.3	Once their dog Penny settled down, we got to chatting about Merrill and Chris's origin story.
1:04.3	Turns out they first met on a dating site about five years ago,
1:08.0	and Chris was immediately taken.
1:10.4	Yeah, I had actually just seen her profile and I thought she looked amazing and
1:14.9	you know, she had this like nice black and white picture of her playing her guitar.
1:19.2	I was like, oh, she seems great.
1:21.2	And then a couple days later, she messaged me.
1:23.2	One message led to another and the two started dating.
1:26.6	And the topic of kids popped up quite early on.
1:30.4	I mentioned it super casually and it was like the third date or something,
1:35.1	and then I felt really awkward about it. Do you remember that?
	...

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