Diet for a healthy dad-to-be

As a dad-to-be, does what I eat and drink matter?

What you eat may have an impact on the quality of your sperm. So it makes sense that your food choices could play a significant part in your ability to conceive.

About one man in every 20 is affected by decreased fertility (subfertility). This means it will take longer than usual for you to make a baby. When it comes to fertility problems it's estimated that:

• 30 per cent can be traced to men
• 29 per cent are attributed to women
• 10 per cent are a combination of the two
• 5 per cent are due to other factors
• 24 per cent are unexplained

If you do have a fertility problem, diet may be one of the factors which could help to remedy it. If you have poor eating habits and drink heavily, this may lower the quality and quantity of your sperm.

Though there's not a lot of research into how diet improves your fertility, eating well for your health is important. A balanced diet as part of a healthy lifestyle may be one of the factors that helps the condition of your sperm. This may in turn boost your baby-making chances.

What's a healthy diet for a dad-to-be?

You diet should be every bit as balanced, varied and nutritious as a mum-to-be's diet. Eat a wide variety of foods from all the food groups, which means:

• plenty of wholegrain, starchy foods (carbohydrates)
• some protein (lean meat, fish and pulses)
• some low-fat dairy produce (such as semi-skimmed milk and yoghurt)
• plenty of fruit and vegetables

Which nutrients might improve my fertility?

Some vitamins and minerals may play a part in helping conception. However, there isn't a lot of strong evidence for this. The best way to get these nutrients is from your diet.

Zinc and selenium

Both zinc and selenium play an important role in conceiving. Low levels of zinc and selenium have been linked to poor sperm quality and a reduction in the sperm's ability to move (motility).

Selenium supplements may improve the quality of your sperm and increase your chance of pregnancy, but experts are unsure about how much the dose should be.

Food sources of zinc include baked beans and dark chicken meat.

Flesh foods such as meat and poultry, liver, fish and milk are very good sources of zinc.

Wholegrains, nuts and seeds are good sources of zinc for vegetarians. As some zinc is lost during processing and milling, wholegrains are better sources of zinc than refined grains, such as white flour.

Selenium can be found in bread, fish, meat, eggs and brazil nuts.

Vitamin D

One study has shown a possible link between vitamin D levels and how mobile your sperm is. The study showed that men who were deficient in vitamin D had less mobile sperm. However, more research is needed on this.

Our bodies make vitamin D in response to sunlight. We also get it through eating foods containing vitamin D. Oily fish, and foods fortified with vitamin D such as some breakfast cereals, contain vitamin D.

Folate

Folate (vitamin B9), is important for men to make healthy sperm and is the naturally occurring form of folic acid. There's a small amount of evidence linking a diet rich in this vitamin to higher sperm counts. You don't need to take a folic acid supplement as a dad-to-be, but it won't do you any harm to eat plenty of folate-rich foods.

Folate-rich foods include green vegetables such as broccoli (hari gobhi), spinach (palak) and sprouts. Folate can also be found in pulses such as kidney beans (rajma), potatoes (aloo) and oranges (santra).

So a home-made spinach (palak) dal or green beans and potato (aloo beens sabzi) is a good way of incorporating folate into your diet. Many breakfast cereals are also fortified with folic acid.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants may improve the quality of your sperm by decreasing the number of free radicals that can cause cell membrane damage. It has been found that men who ate a diet low in antioxidants were more likely to have poor-quality sperm.

Antioxidant vitamins include vitamins C and E and betacarotene, a form of vitamin A. Eating a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables will give you plenty of antioxidants.

Make it easy by snacking on fruits such as oranges (santra), sweet lime (mausambi), apple (seb), kiwi fruit, guava (amrood), banana (kela), grapes (angoor) and mangoes (aam) at work and at home.

There's even some evidence that if you're taking longer than the usual time to conceive you may benefit from antioxidant vitamin supplements. This may increase your chances of making a baby and of your wife carrying the pregnancy to term.

However, more research is needed in the area of male fertility and supplements, for us to be sure.

What about my weight?

Maintaining a healthy weight is essential for keeping your sperm in good condition. You can do this by having a healthy, balanced diet and exercising regularly.

Being overweight can affect your ability to conceive a child and can influence the quality of your sperm. This effect is greatest in men who have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, but a BMI of over 25 can also result in a higher risk of poor sperm.

Weight loss has been shown to improve the quality of sperm in men whose BMI is greater than 30. So if you are carrying a lot of extra weight and your sperm quality is poor, it is worth a try.

Should I cut down on caffeine?

It's fine to keep drinking coffee and tea. There's no strong evidence that caffeine can harm your fertility as a dad-to-be unless you also smoke.

A study looking at couples who were undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment showed that drinking caffeine as a dad-to-be didn't have an effect on how well the IVF worked.

Caffeine may even improve sperm motility. Studies of fertile and infertile men showed those who drank large amounts of caffeine regularly had significantly higher sperm motility than those who didn't. We need more research into any direct effect on fertility, though.

What about alcohol?

In order to improve your baby-making chances, it's best to cut back on alcohol if you drink regularly.

There is no evidence to suggest that light to moderate drinking (up to a maximum of three to four units of alcohol per day) will affect your fertility. However, it's easy to underestimate how much you're drinking.

Experts agree that drinking excessively will impair the quality of your sperm.

Heavy consumption of alcohol affects your hormone levels, in particular your testosterone levels. It also affects the ability of your testes to mature the sperm properly. This leads to poor sperm quality but the effect is reversible, so if you cut down on alcohol over several months your sperm quality could improve.

Also stay away from tobacco and other related products such as gutkha and paan masala.

If you commit yourself to a few months of clean living and healthy eating, and a safe (though admittedly tamer) lifestyle, you'll be in top shape to father a child.

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• How long will it take to get pregnant?