Women often face pressure to look after their reproductive health, and the pressure to conceive by a certain age, but rarely is the same conversation put to men.
However, research has shown that men too have a ‘reproductive age’ and there are many factors contributing to a low sperm count, which can have a very detrimental effect when trying to get pregnant. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine released results of a study in 2014 that revealed 40% of fertility problems in the US were due to a ‘male factor’, 40% were due to a ‘female factor’ and 20% of the time the cause was unknown. So really, men should be equally as responsible as women for their reproductive health.
With this in mind, a company called Sandstone Diagnostics have developed new technology to encourage men to keep track of their sperm count and take more responsibility for their reproductive health.
The product is called Trak, a portable centrifuge that allows men to measure their sperm count at home. It’s been compared to a Fitbit for sperm – you load the sperm in to the disposable test prop, spin it, then read it to find out your sperm count. The tech has been US FDA approved, meaning it is safe to use.
The CEO of Sandstone, Greg Sommer, said: “Trak is a complete system that not only gives couples the ability to conveniently measure semen quality at home, but also provides digital health tools and population-based data to help men take charge of their reproductive health in a whole new way.”
Hopefully making technology like this more available and easy to use will help more attention be placed on men’s bodies in the conception process and find more ways to help them.
The Trak devices start shipping in October 2016, and cost $159.99 USD. They also come with a free male reproductive health guide.
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