Article content

Boys born through a common type of IVF treatment are suffering from low sperm counts and may not be able to have children naturally, a study suggests.

Doctors in Brussels pioneered intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in the 1990s and have been following 54 children born using the procedure ever since.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Boys born through common type of IVF might not be able to naturally have children of their own: study Back to video

The technique, developed to help male infertility, involves selecting a healthy sperm and injecting it into an egg before the resulting embryo is implanted into the mother. It is now commonly used in fertility procedures even when the woman is infertile, because selecting the best sperm increases the chance of a healthy baby.

However, experts were concerned at the time that baby boys born from this technique would also inherit their father’s infertility, meaning future generations would always require ICSI to become parents.

In the first study of its kind, the team who carried out the original procedure discovered that the 54 men, who are now aged between 18 and 22, had almost half the sperm concentration of naturally conceived men as well as a 62 per cent lower sperm count, and 66 per cent lower sperm motility – which measures how well a sperm can move.