Men who enjoy heated seats on a cold and frosty morning may be unknowingly damaging their chances of having a baby.

Research suggesting heated seats in cars could be damaging male fertility first emerged in 2008 with scientists proving the heat from the seats in turn heated up the scrotum enough to damage sperm.

The study, carried out by Dr Andreas Jung and colleagues from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen and the Ford Research Centre in Aachen, Germany, tested the theory of 30 healthy males.

The males were sat in a car with heated seats for 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, the temperature of the scrotum had increased by 0.6 degrees compared with sitting in an unheated seat. Lead researcher, Dr Jung, said that this increase in scrotum temperature could be enough to damage sperm production.

Whilst the study went some way in proving that heated seats increases the temperature of the scrotum, it didn’t look directly at the effect that temperature increase would have on fertility.

However, with the health of your sperm at risk, we think this is one luxury you can certainly do without when trying to conceive!

Photography: Carlos RM @Flickr