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Comment by kneebonian | Hacker News Reader

It is interesting, I have a friend group that consists of about 5 married couples all of whom have been having issues conceiving and have been trying for a while now, but are still having issues. Curiously enough my wife and I just had our 4th and every time we've conceived within two months (even when I was hoping it would take a little longer).

From what I hear our friends story is not unusual and many in our age bracket 20-30 year olds are struggling to have children.

Don't really know what my point is except it is interesting and I am wondering what the potential impact of the increased difficulty in having children is.

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In my experience it was a stress issue for the couples that were having trouble that I know.

One friend and his wife gave up alcohol, caffeine and meat, it seemed like there was just a ton of stress they had put on getting pregnant for 6 months. It wasn't until after they took a break from trying that they got pregnant one night after drinking.

I think modern medicine somewhat ignores how powerful the human mind is. It is possible that my friend wasn't actually performing as well as he thought he was, also possible that the wife had 'calculated' the exact day that conception should happen. Instead of listening to her body, evolutionarily it would be advantageous for women to be horny while most fertile in the cycle.

Well, that or all the endocrine disruptors just made it take forever.

Probably just took them a long time and they happened to conceive after making those changes.

Certainly they tried many methods over time, and with a low% chance per attempt, they'll conceive after a bunch of 'interventions'.

> alcohol, caffeine and meat

one of these is definitely not like the others...

An all-meat diet I would bet is the best to conceive, because it's the best for hormonal health, judging by the countless anecdotes (e.g. women regaining their cycles after many years) I'm seeing.

Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, it's still shocking to me that people still believe that meat is detrimental to health.

Ahh, anecdotes about consuming meat, I can't think of anything more scientifically rigorous and less influenced by sentiment.

My own anecdotes tell me that eating meat vastly decreases your fertility rate. Some anecdotes add that it's because of the animal hormones you consume, others state that it's because meat-eating is associated with other health conditions which interfere with conception (obesity, high cholesterol, cancer), and yet other anecdotes don't assign a cause to the increased fertility from leaving out meat.

As anecdotes, these are all of course, incredibly scientific.

When the anecdotes all seem the go completely against the prevailing narrative ("meat is like smoking!") and there are huge numbers of them, that has got to pique your interest https://carnivore.diet/?s=cycle (try different search terms, YouTube is also a great source).

This thread is full of anecdotes so I'm just the messenger of some I know of. I don't care about science when our bodies are burning because of the terrible advice some of the "science" has been giving us.

- dietary cholesterol is good and cholesterol is not the problem, triglyceride/cholesterol ratio is

- hormones from meat... that's just not having a sense of scale, don't know how to put it, of course everything is going to have some tiny amount of hormones, even the vegans' beloved soy

I'm sure the good people at carnivore dot diet are completely unbiased and neutral agents in this debate.

You could probably also be sure that this isn't the only source.

Maybe it’d be better if you led with that instead?

I think it's a great resource, these are personal testimonials, real people (many of them have interviews on YouTube). I would think it wouldn't change your stance anyway.

> I don't care about science

Only slightly taken out of context, but telling I think.

Anecdotally (again), all the healthiest people I know get lots of exercise, eat a reasonable amount of carbs from wholemeal/wholegrain and vegetable sources, some fat and some protein. This is the "official" recommended diet by most authorities, and has a lot going for it, apart from being boringly conventional (so therefore unattractive to people who are excited by these threads).

The unhealthy people I know jump from diet to diet in an attempt to take a shortcut to fitness, singing the praises of the most recent one (...but if the last one was so great, why did you have to change it again?)

There are problems with the carnivore diet, including lack of fibre, micronutrients, red meat association with colorectal cancer, and so on. In addition it's bad for the environment and would be unsustainable if we all switched to it.

> Only slightly taken out of context, but telling I think.

I always wonder how do these people get to Hacker News? This is a somewhat sophisticated audience but nonetheless we always have these meat-obsessed comments on tangential topics.

Just counterbalancing people making the same outdated claims about meat being unhealthy. I've personally and know of many people who greatly improved their health by eating meat, so I'm sharing.

The thing is, no one asked, and it was completely off topic.

The gist of the post you originally replied to was that some people stopped doing things presumably unhealthy, and couldn't conceive. One of those things was eating meat. Then they started doing those things again, and, presumably due to reduced stress, their fertility improved (OP hints they suspect correlation, in this case, is from causation).

If anything, this almost suggests it was healthier for these people, in this situation, to eat meat. Same with resuming alcohol and caffeine. The added stress from avoiding those things may have been worse for them. No claim of meat being net unhealthy was made in that post.

But I'll make it now, since we're here and you haven't stopped. There are many studies showing excessive meat consumption has negative health effects.

I'm not saying it's always healthier for everyone to cut out meat entirely, just that the average diet includes a decidedly unhealthy amount of meat. There's nothing "outdated" about this claim, it's based on heaps of modern research. Your anecdotes don't mean anything, and are no doubt cherry-picked. I know lots of people who claim adding meat back to their diet (or adding more meat to their diet) has improved their well-being also. And if I had an axe to grind with the suggestion that I eat less meat, I might regurgitate those anecdotes too.

FWIW I also know plenty of people who feel healthier when they eat less meat, but again, I don't consider anecdotes useful in this conversation.

https://defector.com/who-could-have-possibly-predicted-the-b...

you're being terribly dishonest if you mean to suggest this has anything to do with the carnivore diet

Meat has been a staple of the human diet since recorded history. Its basically a science experiment spanning millenia with favorable results for meat-eating--no anecdotes necessary.

So has woodsmoke been - and we know that any amount of that is bad for us.

The fact that it has happened for a long time is not evidence that it is good or beneficial.

The type of meat matters, I would look into Neu5Gc.

Actually, 6 cycles is statistical average for conceiving.

One tip - get some ovulation sticks. My wife and I never realised but the egg is actually only around for a single day - it must be fertilised in those 24 hours. If you have sex after that there is zero chance of conceiving, sperm can hang around so you can conceive with sex a few days before. But outside that really small window you are wasting your time. The actual accurate window is massive guess work - some women are not that regular with ovulation. Ovulation sticks tell you exactly what’s going on - tell you when ovulation is coming, so that’s when you have lots of sex. Before we used them we basically had sex loads (outside this window) which was worse than nothing as it makes you less likely to be going hard in the right window. First time we used the sticks she got pregnant immediately.

We had a friend who had been trying for 8 years to have a kid, told us she was just about giving up and thinking of adoption. We asked if she used the ovulation sticks - “what are they??” We gave her the rest of ours and a couple of months later she was pregnant, now has a baby. So yeah, these things don’t seem to be as well known as they should be, and can be a massive help.

The woman's libido should be really high when she is fertile and men can tell as well; She smells better, and mechanically the sex works better as there is there is more lubrication and it just feels much better.

To add to this, home sperm test kits can help rule out the man as well. Some men don't know to avoid vigorous exercise, hot showers, and jacuzzis until they realize how low their sperm counts actually are. (The below kit isn't the only kit. Shop around if this is pertinent to your interests because I don't want to feel like I'm shilling this specific one).

https://www.amazon.com/YO-Android-Description-Compatibility-...

This has been my exact experience too. Wife and I...no trouble conceiving.

Friends in late 20's to early 30's have had a lot of trouble conceiving, i.e. they needed to do IVF.

Not sure what's going on with that, and this is purely anecdotal, but I've been hearing people having troubles having kids a lot it seems.

Are you guys really bragging about your fecund sperms on HN?

What’s your secret? Is it the microdosing?

I wonder if it's because this is probably the only place they feel they can get away with bragging, but have been "proud" of their "accomplishment" for some time now.

In no way was my intention to brag. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the parent commenter's intention either. Just people reflecting and commenting on their experiences on this topic.

I'll keep in mind how comments like that come off in the future.

Many old people tell us about all types of fertility ceremonies etc available to us at a local shrine in order to help my partner and I get pregnant if we needed it.

I don't think it's all that new to be honest, else these ceremonies wouldn't exist.

Yup, part of it is definitely that millennials have had it bashed in to them that it's super easy to get pregnant so never have sex without precautions and only stay thinking about having kids when you're "ready". Many millenials wait until they're thirty and probably think that they should be able to get pregnant in one or two months, when it can easily take half a year. At least that was my own personal experience trying to get pregnant. It became pretty stressful after trying a few cycles with no result.

I think many people would be surprised at how many couples have done IVF recently… I wish I had reliable numbers for it.

I was surprised at what the other clients looked like in our IVF clinic’s waiting room. I was expecting us to be the only youngish, fit couple. Instead they all looked like us other than one woman who was maybe 35 or so.

This seems scary to me. Imagine a world where children have to be conceived in this way: it would be trivial for some authoritarian governments to now control child birth. I don’t mean disincentivizing like China did but actual control.

Republican anti-abortion lobby groups are already planning this.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tennessee-republicans-abortio...

n=1 but with my daughter we had issues and ended up resorting to IVF.

During the "issues" phase my count was tested and was considered good...problem is/was on my wife's side...all to say conception issues aren't all down to sperm counts (not that you implied that, just wanted it out there).

better phrasing: while trying to conceive our daughter :)

xD Jesus!

That’s true, but keep in mind there are issues that can happen on the women’s side where you having twice as many sperm could brute force their way past it. One example would be her immune system attacking your sperm.

> many in our age bracket 20-30 year olds are struggling to have children

Wow... I would have thought you were referring to people that were older.

I wonder what the common denominator is there, or if your experience is an outlier. It's obviously noteworthy enough to share. Maybe people that conceive without issue aren't commenting on it as much?

Some fertility problems go unnoticed for a decade. I suggest to my younger (25-29) female friends to have their egg reserve estimated, even if they at that point are not thinking about ever having children. This is because the original issue can be upstream of the couple: a parent who had early menopause, or low ovarian reserve, may pass similar characteristics down to their female progeny.

(Source: conversations with IVF team)

> I suggest to my younger (25-29) female friends to have their egg reserve estimated

hmm... yeah, this would be an interesting biomarker for those in their twenties. It could be valuable later in life.

I was surprised to learn women are born with 1-2 million eggs. By 20 years old, they only have 200k-300k left. They lose more every year.

I wonder if there is any correlation with the use of hormonal birth control prior to attempting to conceive.

Yes, I wonder the same.

After learning about the side effects of birth control, it's concerning that it's the default recommendation for young women, and that they're on it all the time. I understand why. I don't know what a reasonable alternative would be. Abstinence isn't a reasonable alternative.

If abstinence is a reasonable alternative for anything other than sex (don't eat meat, don't use gasoline, etc.) it's also a reasonable alternative for sex. Some won't agree that limiting your "core" desires in any way is reasonable - and I agree. I just disagree that eating, sleeping, or sex are "core" desires. They are secondary to the real core need - happiness.

> (don't eat meat, don't use gasoline, etc.)

Your examples are not comparable to abstaining from sex.

It would be like saying "don't eat any food" and "don't use locomotion to move from point A to point B."

> I just disagree that eating, sleeping, or sex are "core" desires.

I may not be understanding this. Eating and sleeping are obviously requirements for anyone's life, and sex is required for the continuation of all life.

It is definitely possible to go your whole life without having sex. Much like it is possible to go your whole life without loosing your temper. It may not be easy, but it is definitely possible.

But all of them appear to be "core" desires to us because they are immediate, potent forces. But just because these appetites are strong doesn't make them necessary. Everyone has to eat something but (in the general case) "you don't have to eat that *right now*" is true. Same with sleep - you don't need to sleep as much as you think you do (and you probably should be sleeping some times when you don't feel like it). So we come to sex. Is sex necessary for the continuation of the human race? Yes. Is it necessary for you to have sex at all? No. (Again, in the general case).

Sex is not required for individual survival. Food and transportation are necessary for individual survival.

You are conflating species and individual survival. Sex is required for the continuation of the species, but not for the survival of an individual in that species.

> the potential impact of the increased difficulty in having children is.

Less people in the world. Look at Japan and South Korean population projections out 50 to 75 years -- they may cut their populations in half, and it could keep going? Hard to extrapolate trends out that far though...

Sorry, but isn't that a good thing? Putting aside the fact that we're (at least in Europe) paying for a pension fund we'll never have, isn't reducing the amount of people on earth the right solution for basically all problems long term?

It's reductionist at best to say that it solves all problems. It definitely creates some others and doesn't solve everything.

Not if it’s unequal, and infertility is a cruel way to lower the population. Wanting kids and struggling to have them absolutely wrecks you emotionally, and it’s even worse for women.

But also, if it’s chemically related it might hit first world countries harder than third world countries. Imagine what would happen if all aid was cut to Africa.

Basically every major economy completely relies on the fact that there will be more workers/consumers in the future when you break that trend you break the economy. Expect South Korea, Japan and others with demographic inversions coming to have major major issues in the future.

If there are less kids, the ability to pay for your pension fund in 40 years time will be much much harder than it is today. So barring other fundamental changes, more kids will help.

Most other problems on earth will be solved by more technology.

This is an issue with the pension system. I don’t believe we’re overpopulated but it is clearly a bad system when it relies on a constant flow of more children

There’s many problems with the pension system, but the fact it requires humanity to continue to reproduce isn’t one of them.

It requires humanity to grow its numbers, this making it a pyramid scheme.

Growth helps, but it's not required. What is actually required is stability in the age pyramid. The problem is we transitioned suddenly from high growth to a population crash. Now the age pyramid resembles more a propane tank shape, and the pension system went haywire. A very slow transition would be easier to adapt to.

Not what I said. That it requires an increasing number of children to adults to continue is the issue. Personal retirement accounts is a much better alternative.

Population reduction is good, but once the world population falls to say 500M and you want to maintain it, you need ~2 babies per woman on average. If conceiving becomes difficult, we may not achieve that and hypothetically end up in a Children Of Men situation.

Good or bad depends on too many other variables to easily forecast.

We could, in principle, if we really were all willing, rapidly transition to a beautiful solar-hippie future where all the food was either vegan or GM bacterial derived milk [0] or vat-grown cultured flesh. The Earth can support hundreds of billions this way using only land that is currently desert.

We almost certainly won't do that, but we could.

Conversely, rapid depopulation can mess up our economy. How rapid is too rapid? I don't know.

This outcome is IMO more plausible than the solar-hippie outcome. Still not certain, as 75 years of technological change is a lot and could very plausibility give us medicine that seems like magic today — the last 75 includes the eradication of smallpox; the first of each of kidney, heart, heart-and-lung, liver, face, uterus, womb, penis, hand, arm, and leg transplants; first each of pacemaker, cochlear implants, artificial heart; first CT, PET, medical ultrasound, and MRI; first stem cell therapy; robot assisted surgery; organ culture for lab-grown (some of the are still experimental) noses, ears, skin, kidneys, liver, and bladders; the defibrillator; oral contraceptives; genetic engineering; and too many vaccines to bother listing.

The next 75 years could, not implausibly, give us anti-aging drugs that keep us in peak health until whatever kills us; or give us external artificial wombs; or at the very least, turn skin cells into healthy sperm in-vitro.

[0] why isn't this already a thing? Vegan cheese substitutes are 45% mediocre, 45% just bad, and 10% single use case things like smoked tofu

I'm a Catholic and fairly traditionally minded and am surprised by what you're saying since at my church, couples in this age range are on their fourth or fifth kid by the time they're 30.

Even amongst the newest married couples, most are expecting within the first year.

I understand we have different beliefs and such but since we're all in the same environment, how do we explain the simultaneous existence of the seemingly normal-to-hyper fertile?

Surely there is more than just 'its environmental'

> I understand we have different beliefs and such but since we're all in the same environment,

Interesting you mention that the group I am referring to and myself are all members of religion generally associated with large families as well.

I should also clarify all of them have at least 2 kids at this point. Which is another interesting data point of many of them didn't have difficulty with their first couple of kids but now are struggling.

Okay, well you didn't mention this. This is certainly more interesting. I've heard of one couple that I know who are having issues, but they are now much older than they were. I'll have to wait and see. I don't really have any anecdata to confirm or dispute here.

I wish them the best of luck.

I will say, the first couple of kids make it harder to conceive the rest. Logistically speaking... And also , men's and women's stress levels with young children cannot be good for fertility

> are on their fourth or fifth kid by the time they're 30.

That's the difference. Couples that plan explicitly typically don't plan their firstborn before 30.

In what sense? My wife and I certainly planned our first child very young (for the US at least; internationally, we were on the late end, like most Americans)

I suspect the increasingly shrinking demographic of churchgoers is different in this regard from the rest of the population. I think they're right in saying people who plan typically don't plan children for before 30, I don't know anyone near my age (early 20s) who is doing that; many don't want children at all.

My wife and I plan to have all our kids before 30. We're doing well above average financially, and we want to be young while our kids are young. She is currently pregnant with our first.

It helps that she is not very career-minded, I have the opportunity to work from home, and I'm working a role where I earn well and never need to do overtime.

Age matters massively. People getting married in their 30s and trying to conceive in their mid-30s are going to have a much harder time than young people in their early and mid 20s. It's really not a linear drop off in terms of difficulty either - it's fairly exponential.

I think people assume that since a woman who had her first kid at 20 can still have kids at 40 that you can start anytime along that line - I suspect that's not the case for various reasons.

The comment I responded to was about 20 - 30 year olds though. Age .. I totally get that, and the effect in this very group is also obvious. Children are typically front loaded and then the youngest are born in a more spaced out fashion.

Some of it may be psychosomatic - of the "Catholic group" I know of only two couples have had issues, and one resolved after they adopted (and immediately got twins and have three girls that are the same age).

You may also have the age issue - starting at 20 is a lot different than starting at 30.

The age I agree with, but the comment I responded to said that anecdotally, he knew many people in the 20-30 age range, which is surprising to me.

Yep--age is everything.

Most professional couples don't even marry until 30s, and even if married sooner, don't try for kids until later.

My wife and I struggled, yet my wifes sister keeps having kids. Difference was wife's sister started early, whereas wife and I were married at 35.

Anecdata also Catholic. NFP and hormone therapy worked but it was a journey. Tried for 2+ years before realizing we had an issue and did NFP to conceive. Lots of other Catholic couples struggling with it go that route as it is a church-approved method.

Tried for 6 years (age 25-31). Finally considered adoption and then got pregnant and lost the first baby in a miscarriage. Had a healthy second baby at 32. Now have a third healthy baby at 34.

I think a lot of factors combine, but will state that we moved an average of once per year until age 30, so subconsciously we probably didn’t feel settled. It’s a very complex topic with too many variables to effectively model. And even when pregnancy occurs miscarriage rates are high.

I’ll note that young couples with kids are much more obvious in church (they make noise) and more likely to be at masses with other families. Young couples without kids often go to the later masses (in cities sometimes 9 PM).

Not sure why your comment is downvoted but you have a point..

The difference is that religious couples should always be open to life so in a sense they are always "trying" as contraceptives are not allowed (except for NFP) hence their chances go up. Further they are encouraged to married sooner than later sense they should abstain from sex until then.

It makes sense that younger couples having lots of sex without contraception will end up having more children than their counterparts.

Yeah that makes sense to me. I also think a lot of fertility doctors are hoodwinking couples into thinking something is wrong with them if they haven't conceived within a year. I think it'll happen for most people eventually (and the stats agree). Of course, it eases nerves if your 'eventually' is longer because you're younger.

My guess is luck. In my little circle of friends, nobody had any trouble conceiving. Heck, some were provably one-and-done (sad though it may sound, one of my friends only had sex with his wife when she was ready for them to have kids. Do it, wait a few weeks, try again, but they didn't have to try twice for either of their kids). One of my friends had two kids and his wife really wanted a third, then they had twins. Ha, whoops!

Interesting. Our first took about 4 or 5 months? I think my wife stopped her birth control at the end of July and we conceived in December. Our second took 2 months, my wife stopped her birth control in September and we conceived in November. We're both in our mid-30s.

Anecdotally, my wife's sister and her husband have been trying for almost a year? And they've had one miscarriage and nothing else.

My wife’s sister got pregnant her second time before she even had her period after their first baby. My wife and I tried 3 years with several IUI rounds and eventually had to resort to IVF.

I think a higher rate of miscarriages also limits post-30s fertility for many women. A miscarriage is at least one and often multiple months of time lost, while the clock is ticking.

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