You Asked: Can Using a Laptop Make You Infertile?

Using a laptop the way its name suggests—on your lap—has long sparked concerns about male fertility due to crotch overheating. Even now, while many laptops run cooler than their predecessors, men planning to father children still need to be mindful of the risks, some experts say. “Human males have testicles outside our bodies for a reason,” says Dr. Jesse N. Mills, an associate clinical professor of urology and director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA. “Our testicles like to be at least two degrees cooler than the rest of our body, and anything that affects their temperature can affect fertility.” The research linking fertility struggles to hot tubs, saunas and other sources of “scrotal hyperthermia”—or excessively toasty testicles—goes back decades. There’s a clear and negative link between regular exposure to heat and a man’s sperm count and quality. “The heat factor is a well-known negative impact on fertility, so we wanted to know if scrotal temperature really increased with laptop use,” says Dr. Yefim Sheynkin, an associate professor of urology at SUNY Stony Brook who coauthored a 2005 study on laptops and the heat they generate. “We found that, with laptop use, scrotal temperature did increase quite significantly.” After an hour of use, scrotal temperature jumped about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The way men sit when using a laptop can make matters worse. In a follow-up study, ...
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