A retrospective study that looked at pregnancies between 2009 and 2016 published December 18, 2020, in
Human Reproduction found that if a father-to-be has three or more medical conditions that are part of metabolic syndrome: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, the risk for losing a pregnancy was 27 percent compared with 10 percent for men who had no medical conditions.
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There’s a Link Between Paternal Health and Pregnancy Loss
“Preconception counseling, things like prenatal vitamins and living a healthy lifestyle, has only focused on women. This is the first study to show an association between the preconception paternal health and pregnancy loss,” says Michael Eisenberg, MD, associate professor of urology at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, and lead author of the study.