The Reason for High Rate of Infertility in Nigeria Will Surprise You – Expert Report

The high rate of infertility amongst men in Nigerian has been linked to the high consumption of chemically grown and processed foods according to Nigerian fertility experts.

During a Public Discussion on Ethics in In vitro Fertilisation, IVF, practice in Nigeria, the President Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health, AFRH, Dr. Faye Iketubosin, traced the problem of Infertility to the food chain.

According to him, these foods have been causing harm to both men and female. Especially the food that has been processed, mostly the ones imported and stored in cans.

A Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  Iketubosin, said that male fertility has been on the increase in the last 20 years. According to him, the average sperm count in men has dropped.

According to Vanguard, Iketubosin said the World a Health Organisation, WHO, actually estimates that it’s now downward from 20 million to 15 million and that’s because of the global food chain trend.

“It is so because of the food chain. Eating a lot of processes foods that are grown with chemicals and productions. These chemicals have now gotten to the food chain and affecting us in negative ways resulting to infertility on the male side.”

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He further said that while the causes of male infertility could be traced to chemically grown and processed foods, the female infertility is mainly caused by their career pursuit resulting to delay in marriage and child bearing.

The Gynaecologist is of the opinion that on the female aspect there are also a number of factors which also affects fertility as a woman has a life span in which she can achieve children naturally. So by the time she begins that quest for child, they would have gotten too old.

He argued that, the only way to solve the problem of chemically grown and processed foods is to imbibe the culture of organic farming. This will increase the chances of fertility in his opinion.

“In some countries, they have gone back to organic farming and products which tends to be more expensive than the processed foods. This will take more of a bigger government policy to actually look into agricultural policy which should monitor our food chain”

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Speaking on the Ethics in ART, Dr. Ahmad Sa’eid of the department of surgery, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, who was a panellist argued that for IVF to be considered, the religions in the country should be put in place.

“It will take into cognizance the fact that more than 90 percent of the citizens of this country are either Christians or Muslims. So you can’t make a law that will disregard these fates.

We want to assume again that when such policies or laws are developed, it will also take care of the concern that our culture is very important to the people who are citizens of this country,” he said.

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Chairman AFRH Ethics Committee, Dr. Richardson Ajayi  said the law is a bit slow in Nigeria and one of the objectives of this forum is to be able to reflect that irrespective of the society.

He said that once we know what the society thinks, the next thing is to try and put it into law. This is part of the journey of trying to modify the legal position of what In Vitro Fertilization in Nigeria.

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