Tightie Whities vs. Boxers--any difference?

[babylove]

Ordinarily, my hubby is mortified that I discuss our personal life online, but this time....I have a question from HIM!

He wears tightie whities and always has. Since we are TTC, I told him (begged) to please wear boxers for a few months. If you can believe it, he is fighting me on that request. Of ALLLLLL the things I have to do to get and stay pg (not to mention BE pg), the one little thing I ask of him (besides sex on demand :D ) is to wear boxers.....sooo....

Is there any truth to the theory that men who are TTC'ing should not wear tightie whities?

[Sidsou]

The tighty whities do keep "things" slightly warmer which could cut down on the count of good mobile sperm. My DH has problems with low count and motility and one of the first things the RE said was that he really should start wearing boxers just in case the "temperature" was having an effect.

It's not really effective just to wear them on the day of BD. Truly the sperm that are "released" today, the quality of them depends on 3 months ago. Meaning that it takes 3 months of wearing boxers to see the effect. For instance if your DH had a sperm analysis today, but had the flu 3 months ago his numbers today could be low due to that flu he had.

It's sad how much we all end up learning about this stuff :o

[BTB]

Truly the sperm that are "released" today, the quality of them depends on 3 months ago.

Yep - takes 3 months to make sperm, from beginning to end, and thus any change in undies will take that long to have an effect.

It is recommended, for men with sperm quality and/or quantity problems, to wear boxers; DH's urologist said it in no uncertain terms so DH knew he had to make the switch. :) But for men without sperm issues, their undie choice (as well as sauna and hot tub use, bicycling, and other things that keep the pork and beans warmer than usual) while it still dips their count a tad, if they're starting from normal doesn't impact their overall fertility significantly. (if you ejaculate 300 million sperm and 5 million fewer are of good quality due to heat, who cares? But if you ejaculate 30 million sperm and 5 million are messed up, that's more of a problem).

[EJM]

Would he maybe compromise with boxer/briefs first? Then maybe he'd eventually be ok with boxers. With less of a "drastic" change hopefully he'll be more open to it.

[babylove]

Thank you so much ladies!! Funny, I did a quick internet search about this issue after I posted and most of the hits said that underwear choice does not really impact sperm count, motility, etc. But if many of your REs said otherwise, I trust their judgment more than the Internet! I have been trying to get DH to wear boxers for months, not just on the days that we BD...no dice. Hopefully, now that he has this info (and he asked for it!), he will change his habits. Thanks!!!

[DallasLady]

We are having this same battle in my house. Dh loves his tighty-whities :D. But he has been diagnosed with Low count and Low morphology. Because he is overweight, heat is even more of an issue for him. Doc wants him in boxers, but he HATES boxers :mad: He keeps finding all those damned internet articles that say that underwear doesn't matter that much. But, in our case, we need every little bit of help we can get!

[ktsb]

It is recommended, for men with sperm quality and/or quantity problems, to wear boxers; DH's urologist said it in no uncertain terms so DH knew he had to make the switch. :)

This is the key point here. I was in the same boat but decided not to make an issue of it until I was more sure it was hindering the process (if you know what I mean wink wink).

Lucky for him there wasn't an issue ;) .

[BTB]

The thing is, the internet sites are right, AND so are the doctors.

The internet's advice is meant as generic for all comers. The doctor's advice is based on that person's customized situation, which in this case is mathematically a whole different ball of wax.

If you ejaculate 300 million sperm and 5 million fewer are of good quality due to heat, who cares? But if you ejaculate 30 million sperm and 5 million are messed up, that's more of a problem.

Those numbers don't sound impressive, but assuming an average 3 mL of ejaculate, man #1 has 100 million/mL (slightly above average) and man #2 has only 10 million/mL (half what is considered the cutoff to be "subfertile"). HUGE difference. For man #1, it really doesn't matter what kind of underwear he wears, for man #2 it really does matter.