Male infertility currently accounts for 40% couples remaining childless compared to about 20% a decade ago, say experts. However, newer medical techniques that help to separate healthy and higher quality sperms are helping to address the rise in male infertility."A decade back, male infertility accounted for around 20%-25% childless couples which has risen to over 50%," said Dr Manish Banker, director of a fertility clinic.
           "This is an alarming rise and could be due to changing lifestyles, stressful work and personal environment, increased consumption of alcohol, tobacco and rising levels of obesity, among other factors," he said.Dr Banker said that newer techniques are now being used to help overcome male infertility. "Magnetic Activated Cell Sorting (MACS) is technique which helps separate healthy sperms with longer life from sperms which are programmed to die early, and lower fertility," said Dr Banker.
"This helps especially in cases where there is a history of failed conception or unexplained infertility, but sperm count is otherwise normal," he added.

Out of 600 patients treated with MACS, 309 conceived. This 50% success rate is much higher than the general 15%-20% success found using older methods," said Dr Banker.Dr Falguni Bavishi, another fertility expert, said that male infertility is rising despite World Health Organization (WHO) regularly lowering sperm count benchmarks.

      "Normal sperm count was reduced from 60 million per ml to 20 million which was last brought down to 15 million per ml. Despite this, we are seeing a consistent rise in men with low sperm count," said Dr Bavishi.Bavishi said that newer techniques now involve checking DNA fragmentation index, which reflects the quality of the sperm. "Higher the index, poorer the quality of sperm. Checking DNA fragmentation index helps us choose better quality sperms for fertility," she said.