Trying to get pregnant and Diving

[Iguana Don]

Question!

As a friend told me, "To operate a clean newspaper, you have to have a dirty mind."

 

[Starfish]

Iguana Don

I didn't get where "oligoasthenoteratozoospermic" required a dirty mind

. . . but if your mind leads you there. . .

--Starfish

 

[Carnell04]

The only other journal article I found was on _male_ fertility and the reduction in semen due to saturation diving.

Impact of a deep saturation dive on semen quality.

Aitken RJ, Buckingham D, Richardson D, Gardiner JC, Irvine DS.

MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh EH3 9ET, Scotland. jaitken@mail.newcastle.edu.au

The demonstration dive 'Aurora' has provided an opportunity to study the impact of extreme hyperbaric conditions on male fertility. This operation involved a 33-day diving programme during which divers were exposed to a maximum pressure of 4.6 Mega Pascals (Mpa) for 7 days. At days - 4, + 27, + 34, + 82 and + 263 relative to the initiation of the dive, semen samples were analysed to determine the quality of spermatogenesis and the functional competence of the spermatozoa. A dramatic fall in semen quality was observed in association with the dive and by day + 82 the potential fertility of the men was seriously compromised as evidenced by oligoasthenoteratozoospermic semen profiles and the poor fertilizing potential of the spermatozoa. These studies indicate, for the first time, that the severe hyperbaric conditions associated with deep saturation dives have a profound effect on male reproductive function.

PMID: 10762438 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
male

How deep are these dives? 4.6 Mega? -4?

 

[DocVikingo]

How deep are these dives? 4.6 Mega? -4?

Hi Carnell04,

The post you cite by Starfish was made on October 8,2002. This member was last active on the board on June 28th, 2004. As such, s/he is unlikely to reply.

The study cited appeared in a somewhat obscure publication, the International Journal of Andrology(2000 Apr;23(2):116-20) and I have not readily been able to locate it in full text

A megapascal/Mega Pascal (MPa) is a measure of pressure and equivalent to ~145 pounds per square inch (psi). 4.6 megapascals would equal 450 meters of sea water, or ~1,476 feet of sea water. The study involved a single saturation dive at 4.6 megapascals that lasted one week and a total of 33 days at pressure. As indicated in the study abstract, these "dives" obviously were done under "extreme hyperbaric conditions."

BTW, the string of numbers in the study, i.e., "– 4, + 27, + 34, + 82 and + 263," are the days on which semen samples were obtained "relative to the initiation of the dive." In other words, samples were taken 4 days prior to the 33 days at pressure, and then at 27, 34, 82 and 263 days after the dive, respectively.

Helpful?

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[Carnell04]

Yes, thank you. I have a little girl and we are about to try for another one and of course I want a boy now. Anyway, I was reading an article on tips to have a boy and they said there was a study done that men who fly a lot or scuba dive have girls more often because it can lower your sperm count and the male sperm are more fragile and therefore are more likely to be damaged where they cant travel. Anyway, I googled and came up with this post. I cant find any studies on it though except this one mentioned in this post. I can believe it if it is something extreme of course but I doubt it on normal dives. Who knows.

 

[DocVikingo]

Yes, thank you. I have a little girl and we are about to try for another one and of course I want a boy now. Anyway, I was reading an article on tips to have a boy and they said there was a study done that men who fly a lot or scuba dive have girls more often because it can lower your sperm count and the male sperm are more fragile and therefore are more likely to be damaged where they can’t travel.

Hi Carnell04,

Obviously this conjecture has been little researched. Who would fund a large scale, high quality and hence convincing study? The aviation and diving industries? The military?

In any event, the conjecture does not appear to be supported. In an unpublished study done in 2001, Dr. Carl Edmonds, a world-recognized expert in diving medicine, retrospectively reviewed the offspring of Royal Australian Navy divers. Of 240 offspring, 122 were conceived before diving activities, the remaining 118 after the divers received their diving qualifications. These groups were then separated into air divers and oxygen divers. There was no significant difference between any of the groups and no support for the hypothesis that divers have a propensity to female offspring.

I'm sure you'll be thrilled with whatever gender child you give birth to.

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[Edward3c]

Yes, thank you. I have a little girl and we are about to try for another one and of course I want a boy now. Anyway, I was reading an article on tips to have a boy and they said there was a study done that men who fly a lot or scuba dive have girls more often because it can lower your sperm count and the male sperm are more fragile and therefore are more likely to be damaged where they cant travel. Anyway, I googled and came up with this post. I cant find any studies on it though except this one mentioned in this post. I can believe it if it is something extreme of course but I doubt it on normal dives. Who knows.

Hi,

Might be worth dropping Louise Trewavas louise@divegossip.com a line. She is the editor of DIVE GIRL and I'm sure this question will have come up at some point.

Edward

 

[Momonga]

This is an old question, but a very good question and I'm in the same boat (little dive pun). I did some digging, because everything I like to do is supposed to be bad for a pregnancy, and I am tired of hearing "no, no, no...", and I am not going down without a fight. So I asked my doc about it, and he said that there are no studies on the earliest stages of pregnancy, so you might get a million different opinions. Dan has a very interesting page on research on female diving issues. You have to google it because this is my first post, and rules are rules (no links). As of this moment I am typing, it's the first one that comes up under "DAN SCUBA diving while pregnant".

These studies that are driving the concerns about diving while pregnant are finding stuff related, it seems to my amateur mind, to organ development, or DCS impacts on the baby. When you're TTC (that's the snappy new way to say "trying to conceive"), you go through about 2 weeks each month, for most women, when you can't tell if you're pregnant yet. So is it safe to dive then? There is no organ development going on yet, until about week 5 or 6 (from the first day of the last period, not from conception).

Also, I found a thread here under "Ask Doctor Decompression". Those guys seem to concur that there is no real concern in the first couple of weeks following conception, before any real action.

Of course, that same DAN site address diving while menstruating (or with breast implants and all kinds of other morbidly fascinating topics). As it turns out, there's no evidence at all to support that sharks are more inclined to attack women diving while menstruating. Don't forget it's not pure blood, and they know what they're looking for - this is not it. So you can limit your diving to that two weeks or so where you DO know you're not pregnant, even though your "under the weather" for about half that time, and still have fun, as long your cramps or whatever are not spoiling it for you.

So this is what I've come up with, in response to my own search: in order not to spend the rest of my life wondering if it's my fault that my kid is a whippit adict, or whatever, because I couldn't wait two weeks for my chance to go diving, I'll stick to the first two weeks until my fertility monitor says "go time". It wasn't exactly the answer I wanted. Maybe my OB will come back with better news. But still not bad news. I'm not out of the game yet.

 

[tracydr]

Deignor,

My advice would depend on what you mean by "trying to get pregnant". (Gentlemen, close your eyes. This is girl stuff.) If it's just not trying NOT to get pregnant, I would probably continue diving, at least during the first two weeks of your cycle. If you're actively trying to get pregnant, my advice is a little different.

If you think you are likely to get pregnant, you should act as if you already are. (This was the advice my OB-GYN gave me.) That means taking prenatal vitamins, folic acid tablets, (maybe baby asprin), and not drinking.

That said, I made four (shallow) dives the weekend before I found out I was pregnant! I now have a three month old daughter who is happy, and healthy, and who I expect to start clamoring for her own dive gear in the blink of an eye.

Good luck!

What's the baby aspirin do? Just asking because I'm advanced maternal age, trying to get pregnant, too.

 

[DocVikingo]

So this is what I've come up with, in response to my own search: in order not to spend the rest of my life wondering if it's my fault that my kid is a whippit adict, or whatever, because I couldn't wait two weeks for my chance to go diving, I'll stick to the first two weeks until my fertility monitor says "go time". It wasn't exactly the answer I wanted. Maybe my OB will come back with better news. But still not bad news. I'm not out of the game yet.

Hi Momonga,

Based on what I consider the last word on this topic to date, your chosen course of action appears prudent:

"J Obstet Gynaecol. 2006 Aug;26(6):509-13.

Scuba diving and pregnancy: can we determine safe limits?

St Leger Dowse M, Gunby A, Moncad R, Fife C, Bryson P.

Diving Diseases Research Centre, Hyperbaric Medical Centre, Plymouth, UK. marguerite@mstld.co.uk

No human data, investigating the effects on the fetus of diving, have been published since 1989. We investigated any potential link between diving while pregnant and fetal abnormalities by evaluating field data from retrospective study No.1 (1990/2) and prospective study No.2 (1996/2000). Some 129 women reported 157 pregnancies over 1,465 dives. Latest gestational age reported while diving was 35 weeks. One respondent reported 92 dives during a single pregnancy, with two dives to 65 m in the 1st trimester. In study No.2 >90% of women ceased diving in the 1st trimester, compared with 65% in the earlier study. Overall, the women did not conduct enough dives per pregnancy, therefore no significant correlation between diving and fetal abnormalities could be established. These data indicate women are increasingly observing the diving industry recommendation and refraining from diving while pregnant. Field studies are not likely to be useful, or the way forward, for future diving and pregnancy research. Differences in placental circulation between humans and other animals limit the applicability of animal research for pregnancy and diving studies. It is unlikely that the effect of scuba diving on the unborn human fetus will be established."

So why risk it?

Regards,

DocVikingo