My husband and I have been trying for a couple of years with no success. All tests have come back within range.
we are due to start ivf very soon, just waiting for a date but my husband is refusing to cut back on alcohol. He says as his tests were normal, he doesn’t need to change his lifestyle.
I’m too scared to mention this to our Dr in case it delays our ivf even more.
Will him drinking alcohol have a detrimental effect? The Dr hasn’t told him to stop drinking alcohol but I am aware that others I know were told to quit.
Written by
Jen9999
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
The way I see it...if you want the best chance of having a baby whether naturally or through IVF then you make improvements to your lifestyle...and yes that includes at least cutting back on alcohol, but preferably stopping it altogether.
My husband stopped completely for 3 months before treatment and until we were successful.
I'm baffled by all the stories of husband's who won't make these sacrifices 🤷♀️...
I don’t think the question is being boastful or judging.
I was in that exact situation and it turned out my ex didn’t really want kids and was too cowardly to tell the truth so I think it’s a very good question.
If someone truely wanted a healthy baby, why wouldn’t they give up drinking alcohol.
Especially when your spending so much money, pumping hormones into your body and undergoing invasive procedures.
Life is not always as binary as that sadly. People drink to relax, get them through the stress of IVF, get them through the stress of work, drink for enjoyment, drink to excess because they can’t do otherwise. I’m not saying I do. I gave up everything for IVF including my career but I have a partner who found it much more difficult. We can’t always cut and run because our partners don’t do as we ask them.
No one suggested or advised to leave their partner because they drink alcohol ?
That’s not even what happened in my situation. He left me because he didn’t really want a child.
I have nothing against people drinking alcohol but alcohol is a poison. That’s proven and is the reason there is no safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant women.
The egg and sperm cells take 3 months to mature to the point of fertilisation so drinking during this time is detrimental if you want a healthy child. And I’m not just talking about getting pregnant. I’m talking about having a healthy child.
There have been numerous studies done on the connection between autism and paternal drinking prior to conception.
There are numerous other ways to deal with stress.
I’m so sorry your partner left you. That must have been very upsetting.
I am well aware of the benefits as well as disadvantages of alcohol. I also know exactly how it *can* have an effect on fertility. You can’t speak in absolutisms though. “Drinking during this time is detrimental if you want a healthy child”. No. Drinking to excess every day of the week is really not a great idea, agreed. But I’m afraid you’re in no position to say that people can’t drink at all whilst trying to conceive. There have been studies linking autism to the paternal age too. So older men can’t have children now?
You also can’t control others. You can’t make people cut down/ stop doing anything until/ if they want to which is why I find your comments challenging. Please be sympathetic with your responses. People are doing their best here. Over and out.
complexly agree - our ex fertility specialist encouraged us to enjoy a few glasses whilst TTC - he said to " ditch the ovulation sticks and buy a nice bottle of wine !" Of course I didn't 😂anything to keep things more "normal" stress is far more detrimental. It's about balance. They can link pretty much anything to autism . The truth is they really don't really understand what causes autism. Our eldest daughter is autistic and my husband or me didn't drink a drop whilst TTC with her. We spent 7 years trying for her and love her just as she 💗 wouldn't change her she is who she is and her autism doesn't define her as person. I hate it when people say this that the other links to autism as if it's the worst thing in the world your could be autistic- yes parenting an autistic child is much more challenging but with right approach and support they can live perfectly happy lives as other children Xx
I disagree that my question was unhelpful, and would actually say that it was a supportive suggestion! Sometimes people find it difficult being honest about how they feel and their behaviour can indicate their true feelings. It was merely a question which I felt the OP should be thinking about in her situation.
No one is bosting or judging I was just sharing my experience of how my husband responded...if you found it boastful that's fine and your opinion, however I was just sharing my experience in response to a post...kinda what a forum is for I think?!
I think your question was very good, important to ask as sometimes people can sabotage subconsciously the process. So asking is important. People are funny with uncomfortable questions..
I had a similar situation with my husband, he flat refused to even take vitamins (because he had a healthy diet) and also refused to give up alcohol. It drove me NUTS. We were unexplained infertility too as most tests normal apart from his swimmers sometimes not being as high a count as could have been.. his argument to me was always 'they only need a few out of millions and they will choose the best ones'... alongside 'sperm is made every 2-3 days so as long as I don't drink for a few days it doesn't matter' (this is categorically not true we found out later!)
He did eventually start taking vitamins but he never gave up alcohol as part of IVF. He would cut back before a round but never go teetotal.
I think Redbadgers comment about 'does he definitely want a baby' doesn't take into account stubborn, always knows best type men! My husband has made loads of sacrifices and has always been desperate for a child, but he has always been determined that IVF didn't completely take over our lives (impossible for me but seemed to work for him), and he felt there was a middle ground that was acceptable.
If its any consolation I am currently pregnant (with donor eggs as we had to give up on mine) but with his alcohol laden sperm 😆xx
thank you, reassuring to know I’m not the only one going through this.
You’re right it is a case of being stubborn and he is extremely social so I partly get it. It’s probably highlighted by the fact I am doing absolutely everything possible- vitamins, good diet, no alcohol etc
Congratulations on your pregnancy!!! Wishing you all the very best x
My husband is much like Hidden describes her husband. Although my husband also could have a healthier diet. He likes his meals out and does enjoy a drink. This has bothered me so much at various points through our journey but I think there is also a stress relief angle. I know my husband likes a drink to relax and if that was taken away from him long term he would be more stressed which I'm sure also has ill effects when it comes to IVF. My husband will reduce his alcohol in stages leading up to fresh cycles but would not cut it out completely for 3 months straight.
Also we have been through multiple cycles and you have to ask the question of whether its feasible in the long term to make those sorts fo changes. I'm not saying this is you but in my case I have been going through treatment for 2.5 years and it would be silly to cut out everything "unhealthy" because another treatment is always on the horizon.
We saw a sperm DNA fragmentation doctor who was happy with my husband's approach (he has a little bit of fragmentation but we are not classed as male factor issues).
Of course ideally it would be cut out altogether much like anything there is more than one angle to this. And I must say I have found it really stressful sometimes feeling we could do doing better to improve our chances. My advice would be cut back nearer to a fresh cycle if you can xx
just responding to say my husband’s approach was the same. He’d cut back, but not stop. There were times where this was incredibly frustrating and we did discuss it as part of the counselling offered by our clinic which helped us both understand impacts of this and the round in general. His opinion was that he didn’t want it taking over our lives - and i could see to an extent where he was coming from. I’m now 24 weeks so it appeared to work with the cut-back approach for us!
It’s actually the other way around, I’ve found it particularly hard to go t total! My main worry, as Daisy said in her reply- is that I didn’t want IVF to completely change my life. And to some that may sound silly, but it’s a really long and gruelling process ( we’re now completing other tests prior to round 3!) so a glass of wine once a week keeps me sane! I know some won’t agree with it, but my consultant said it wont do harm, however a month before i start IVF and two week wait etc i don’t drink at all. My consultant told my partner drinking isn’t as big of an issue, so he has a pint here and there! They said it would be great to give up all together for both of us, but understand the stress and actually stress is worse for the body than one glass of wine/pint of beer! Do what feels comfortable for you both. Wishing you luck for your round x
I would ask your consultant and be honest with them about how much he drinks and if this will be detrimental. Tbh we probably drink more than 1 a week but try to stick to that if possible but we do like going out with friends etc.
it’s a tricky journey and stress is the worst for IVF so also weigh up that and drinking etc. hope it all goes ok x
He might soften up a bit further down the line. Mine once had a strop about the inconvenience of something or other to do with IVF (I think it might’ve been changing a flight time for skiing or something this particular time - you know… all the essentials! 🙄🙄) and I gave him my best scowl and said, in an unnervingly calm manner, “An inconvenience? I’ll remember that next time I’m injecting myself for the umpteenth time… or when I’m in the theatre with my legs in stirrups one time more than necessary, or when I’m in bed in pain for a day after the procedure because YOU didn’t want to be inconvenienced. Go and have a think about what you’ve just said.” It worked - the next round I don’t think I had to even ask him to stop drinking. 💪🏼
If he hadn’t played ball after that chat there was a good chance I would have told him to go and eff himself and that I wasn’t going through anymore invasive procedures until conditions were optimal! Although I can confirm his sperm count did stay pretty much the same (although a bit higher), it was the DNA fragmentation I was worried about, and we’ve never had a test so I have no idea if it made any difference. But we did have improved quality embryos for this round… 🤷🏻♀️ (Lots of things changed, though, so can’t attribute it to a dry - oh how very dry - January.)
With all this stuff, it’s as much about feeling supported and being a team as it is about what they actually do. We both stopped drinking for a month before the collection this time, and that seemed doable and reasonable. Will him drinking/not drinking be the deciding factor? Probably not. But if it might affect things and if you really feel strongly about this, even if he thinks stopping drinking is all nonsense or whatever, he should respect your feelings and at least cut down. You’re the one going through the procedures so you’re already doing all of the heavy lifting. Does he think it’s fair that you’re the only one making lifestyle changes on top of all that?
Hope you guys manage to sort this out between you xx
I’m also about to start my first round of ivf (icsi) and have had similar frustrations with my husband.
He does suffer from ongoing mental health issues and his drinking got worse after a breakdown he had around Easter 2021 and subsequently out of work for over a year. Since then road to recovery has been a slow process but i’m glad to say he’s mentally much much better and has been in his job over 6 months. He does a stressful job and he says he needs his vices.
While not fully committing to do dry Jan he did manage to go 4 days a week without drinking which for him was a huge deal. Unfortunately he also smokes and I’m pretty sure it’s the combination of smoking/drinking which has impacted his sperm quality - as he has low morphology. He has tried hypnotherapy to give up which didn’t work.
Again I was pleased he was trying and I didn’t want to nag him or give him a hard time as he has come so far. He’s also been taking impryl and vit D.
It is tricky because I’m trying to do what I can - stopped smoking 4 months ago, only had a drink 5 times in Jan, taking all the supplements, changed my diet and started exercising etc.
i do feel resentful sometimes because I know how much he does want it but I feel like he won’t fully commit to making sacrifices. He always says he knows so many other ppl who’ve had babies who’ve smoked/drank more than him… but to me comparing ourselves to anyone else is pointless.
Ultimately I don’t want to fight with him and I want us to be united.
Will have to see how this first round of icsi goes and then take it from there!
oh yes you are not alone here - took my husband a long time, he had baths every day, drank most nights, cycled 8 hours a week….everything you shouldn’t do. We had many arguments - I haven’t got him to give up cycling but he has given up drink and baths, but I’ve also had it thrown back in my face at times.
Like others have said, it’s hard - and if those pleasures are the little joys and the release they have, I can be difficult to give up as then fertility does really take over your life.
I think it’s a bout balance, maybe get him to take proxeed if he won’t stop drinking? Good luck x
Am glad you got lots of support to this post. I honestly know how you feel. My husband cut down, a bit, on the alcohol (eventually) but is also a smoker which caused an insane number of arguments!! (I’ve posted a few times about this here). After so many years of IVF I felt so let down that he couldn’t at least give up smoking (which he did finally, although has since started up again!)
My husband would only listen to a doctor, not to me. Could you ask your doctor what he thinks about alcohol consumption next time you speak to him / see him in front of your husband?! Presumably he will say “fine in moderation”. If your husband is not drinking in moderation then it might make him think. The doctor doesn’t need to know he’s not drinking in moderation if that makes sense??!
Please know you’re not alone. Lots of support here and I understand how difficult it is for some people to give things up.
I totally second all the comments on here. I think most men struggle to understand (at least early on the IVF process) the toll that IVF takes on a woman, so they just don't have the same drive to overhaul their life. My husband is a rule follower so he was pretty good about cutting down on alcohol and taking supplements once our consultant advised him to do those things, but it took him literally YEARS to stop complaining about it or constantly guilting me for all the changes he had to make (as if I wasn't making all those same changes, and more!). Though after a few (failed) IVF cycles where he saw the impact that the cyles had on me, he finally seemed to get that his sacrifices were actually quite reasonable in comparison!
On the practical side, you might want to ask your husband to do a DNA fragmentation test just to make sure that there's not a sperm issue that hasn't been found yet. The standard semen analysis that the NHS does can't identify if there's a problem with the sperm DNA. If the DNA frag test comes back normal then you can pretty confidently say that your issue isn't male factor and his drinking isn't the cause of the problem. However, if it comes back with high fragmentation then you'll have empirical evidence that the sperm is sub-optimal and that he needs to make some changes. At least for my husband, seeing hard evidence that there was a sperm issue def paved the way for the lifestyle changes.
Although my partner didn’t drink during IVF he ate what ever he wanted and gained 2 stone in between tests and starting treatment!! He would literally eat the worst crappy food like Mac Ds, take away pizza, you name it he had it. He was crap with taking vitamins as well it drove me insane. So I hear you it’s so annoying - he did quit smoking but I had to really convince him - his thoughts were that people with drug habits can get pregnant so how is food going to hurt our chances 😖. To be fair to him he did give what the embryologist described as an ‘excellent sperm sample’ on the day of IVF. It was a BFN but got but we’ve got some in the freezer. Check this out though …. Now his part is done (we’re not having another fresh round) he’s started the gym and eating healthy 🤣🤣. And he absolutely wants a baby it’s all he’s ever wanted he didn’t want to use donor eggs but we had to so believe me he’s made sacrifices- it’s just men they are so stubborn!!
in reply to
omg this sounds like my husband!! The drug addicts comment and the fact we are now not doing IVF and he exercises 6 days a week, takes three different types of vitamins and eats healthier than ever ‘because he feels so much better for it’ 😂🤷🏼♀️ x
in reply to
Men are from Mars what else can I say ?! Hilarious and annoying as ferk but we love them anyway 🤣 x
hmmm tricky. I luckily am the drinker and not my partner so it was easy for him. He also did the vitamins and took up exercise as that was the doctors recommendation. Sperm actually gets made 3 months before it comes out, so it’s actually 3 months before that he should make changes. As the others say, if he really wants a baby it’s important he sees his role in it. I would be so angry if my partner didn’t do everything he could as otherwise you are the one giving up everything as well as doing ALL the hard work. I did frustrated when the first FET didn’t work, he hadn’t been exercising and I was getting stressed saying he needed to do more. Luckily our second FET worked so he had no need to and has been a star since our baby was born. Maybe you should task him with making these changes otherwise I can see he will be just as unsupportive when a baby arrives. I couldn’t do without my partners support. We have each others back always and he did all the wake ups in the night until recently when she sleeps through. As for telling the IVF doctor- don’t, it won’t help things.
I went through this with my partner whilst we were ttc and before starting IVF. He really didn’t make any real effort to cut down on drinking and I felt like I was constantly nagging him not to drink and it became a real bone of contention. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to cut down and I got frustrated when it was me paying for all the supplements and having to constantly remind him to take them!! However, we spoke to our consultant yesterday and he said he’s never known an IVF cycle like ours and that it was “remarkable”. I’m 39 and OH just turned 40. We got 10 frozen blasts and 3 PGTA tested with 2 genetically normal and 1 no result. So, I do not know if alcohol makes the difference but it doesn’t necessarily mean bad results. That said, the consultant did tell me not to drink between now and FET as the least toxins flowing round the womb the better! Common sense says that cutting down/out alcohol is for the best but it doesn’t always correlate with failure. Good luck.
so, we’re aiming for the next cycle - mid March, so up til then (and hopefully the next however many months Inc breast feeding etc!) That said I’m in Tenerife and just had one glass of wine! It’s hard and I’m certainly not perfect.
Absolutely it will affect the outcome. I’m no expert but if you have been trying to conceive with no luck and all tests have come back normal the next step would be to clean up diet and lifestyle, get into supplements etc
I went through multiple cycles of ivf with my ex and the more time went by without success the more he drank and the worse the results became.
I hope you can get him to understand this.
If someone wants to have a baby they should do everything possible thing in their power to try and have the healthiest baby possible.
Our clinic advised for the male partner to cut down to 12 units or less per week as alcohol is known to affect sperm. Perhaps this might be feasible for your partner?
my other half was a heavy drinker…before ivf in 2020 he cut back and took the proxeed. It helped results and we didn’t need isci. However we have several miscarriages and once recent ectopic. Good quality embryos but you just never know. We stopped drinking in January (dry January) and found some nice non alcoholic beers. My other half has cut back massively I’m so proud of him. I still let him drink but not back to his heavy drinking days I won’t allow it xx
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Can’t believe it 🥰 6th Ivf & 12yrs ttc 
Ttc before IVF 
First cycle of ivf TTC for 3 & a half years now pregnant 
TTC. IVF waiting list. PCOS
3 Yrs of TTC, 1st round of IVF- I'm pregnant :)
