REPROVA

Before diving in, Merry Christmas REPROVA family, to all who celebrate! Over Christmas, my family and I rewatched Gavin & Stacey (hit BBC comedy). And there’s one storyline, tucked between the laughs and faffs, that really stood out to me. 

Gavin and Stacey are trying to get pregnant. It’s not working. Tension builds. Appointments happen. And then comes the moment that feels almost designed to shock the viewer: Stacey isn’t the problem. Gavin is. 

The reason that scene works so well is not because it’s rare. It’s because we don’t expect it!  

Even now, fertility struggles are instinctively framed as a women’s issue. Periods, hormones, ovulation, age. When pregnancy doesn’t happen, attention almost automatically turns to the woman. So when a storyline flips that assumption, it feels surprising, almost uncomfortable. 

And that reaction tells us something important. 

Male fertility is one of the most under-discussed parts of reproductive health. Not because it’s uncommon, but because it’s quietly sidelined. 

Around one third of infertility cases involve male factors, another third female factors, and the remaining cases are mixed or unexplained. Yet culturally and clinically, fertility conversations still lean heavily on women. 

Point being, men are far less likely to be tested early, less likely to talk about concerns, and less likely to even realise fertility can be a health issue for them at all!  

So when male infertility appears in popular culture, it lands as a twist rather than a reality. 

At its core, male fertility depends on sperm. But sperm health is not just about numbers. It’s about movement, shape, DNA integrity, and how well sperm are produced in the first place. Those processes are sensitive to a lot of factors, including hormones, genetics, age, lifestyle, environmental exposures, and even general health. 

And here’s the part that I find pretty interesting: male fertility is not fixed.  

It can change over time, it can improve, it can worsen. And in many cases, it reflects broader health issues happening elsewhere in the body. 

Over the past few decades, studies have shown a significant decline in sperm counts in men across Western countries. The reasons are still being pieced together, but likely contributors include environmental chemicals, obesity, smoking, stress, poor sleep, and endocrine disruption. 

What’s often overlooked is that sperm health is not just about fertility. Poor sperm quality has been linked to wider health issues, including metabolic and cardiovascular disease, meaning fertility can act as an early warning sign of overall health. 

Despite this, there is no routine screening for male fertility. Most men are only tested once a couple has already been trying to conceive for months or years, when anxiety is high and options feel limited. And I think this raises an interesting question.  

Why do we wait until there’s a problem to look? 

I guess part of it is stigma, part of it is outdated gender norms, and the other part is how reproductive health education has been structured for decades by focusing on women. 

Many men genuinely do not realise fertility can be affected long before they start thinking about children, and I think that’s really a product of unfortunate reproductive health illiteracy.  

Which brings us back to Gavin & Stacey. That storyline worked because it challenged an assumption most people don’t even realise they were holding. 

If male fertility plays such a significant role in reproduction, why is it still treated like an afterthought? Why aren’t we talking about sperm health earlier, more openly, and without shame? 

Next week, I want to return to the other side of this conversation and look at something many people experience but rarely understand properly: why period pain varies so widely between individuals, and when it’s not “just a bad period”.

REPROVA.